[Chapter VII, continued]
Okay, this is a bit scary, what with the personified representation of all of Atlantis staring at us down the barrel of a rifle, but a) it’s just a restoration gel rifle, so worst case scenario we get split into our component duo and bum-rush her, and b) per our monocle she’s actually a fossilized mollusk so she won’t be nearly as blasé if we manage to turn the tables. So let’s try to splort her up:
>put gel on atlantida
(the restoration gel on Atlantida)
We dab a bit on our finger and approach, but she is far too large, far too spry. She catches our wrist and forces us aside, until the gel is harmlessly absorbed into our own skin.
“Oh, no, my dear,” Atlantida says. “They could remake me, but it wouldn’t be the same me, would it? It would be some new construct. The Atlantida of today. And that’s not the way to a consistent policy, is it?”
The materials we found in the propaganda office nodded to this – there’s been some drift in the idea of Atlantida over time, as the popular consensus has shifted to seeing her as a more revolutionary figure. The Bureau prefers an earlier version, reactionaries that they are, and so hasn’t let her catch up to the times since 1983 or so, per the memos; the entity before us is a fossil in more ways than one.
Well, if we can’t just run up to her with the gel, maybe we can distract her by getting her talking?
>ask atlantida about herself
Atlantida doesn’t seem interested in talking about herself.
She fires again. The pellet hits us, cold and hard, in the shoulder. It stings like hell and for a moment I think our clavicle is broken. You put our hand over the wounded spot.
Our hand.
Atlantida lowers the rifle, surprised. “Fused,” she says. “Isn’t that interesting. And so recently, too. If the gel rifle won’t separate you, nothing will.” She smiles, not warmly. “Pity. You would have been easier to deal with separately. Cold Storage for Andra, house arrest for Alex.”
Fused? We should be two pieces by now. Maybe she has an explanation? But you seem to be focused on her gun hand. How can you be so calm?
Uh oh, this is bad news indeed – Alex and Andra have been a solid team so far, but they’re very different people with very different priorities, and if they’re really going to be stuck together forever, that’s going to be a heck of a challenge (assuming we get out of our current predicament!)
As for how and when this happened, @Draconis’s post matches my theory: that moment of dizziness as we exited Cold Storage was the point of no return, as Andra’s will overpowered Alex’s (I feel like this plot development makes more sense if we make the opposite decision, though – Andra becoming a secondary personality in the wake of Alex forcing her to give up her lover feels like the tragic fallout of a no-win situation; the same happening to Alex because he cares so much about a random dissident who’s in the same position after our intervention as before it doesn’t seem as earned).
It seems like Atlantida has heard of this kind of thing happening before:
>ask atlantida about me
“Fused?” you repeat.
“Sometimes a synthetic person gets broken,” Atlantida says. “Forced into a choice he would never have made on his own. Impossible to separate because you aren’t two whole people any more.”
So that confirms things, more or less. Back to the present, what was that about her gun hand?
>x gun hand
A rifle that shoots pellets of restoration gel, converting objects from a distance. Guns like this are illegal to carry unless you’re Bureau. They can inflict unpleasant bruises if they encounter nothing to convert and absorb the energy.
Bruises aren’t very fun, and now that I think of it, she’s not the only one with a gun:
>shoot rifle with gun
The gun fires ruggedly into the restoration gel rifle, which shatters and then reforms as an infertile astrologer. She’s a woman with long grey hair, well past menopause.
The infertile astrologer falls awkwardly to earth and looks around in confusion.
“Mercury is in retrograde,” comments the astrologer. “Expect disordered communications.”
“Oh, bravo,” says Atlantida. “Could you possibly have made a less useful ally?”
I mean, I could have shot the portcullis to make a rustic poll, so yes? But while we’ve disarmed her we haven’t materially improved our position. At least Atlantida has begun monologuing:
Atlantida smiles with half a mouth. “You’ve arrived on a difficult day. In the ordinary course of things, I keep things quiet: the spirit of democracy, but none of the sordid wrangling and bribes and corruption and compromise. It’s only when the spirit of the island itself is threatened, that we have to resort to such extreme measures.”
The infertile astrologer sidles closer to us, smiling and making hand signs that I think are supposed to represent Aries. Old bat.
You could ask whether the protesters feel the same way.
Hmm, she’s closer to us now? Let’s keep Atlantida talking…
>ask whether protesters
“What about the protesters?” you ask. “They don’t like your policy. Are you sure you’re really representing the spirit of Atlantis, or have you gone some other way of your own?”
Atlantida shrugs off our question. “A vocal minority. Most people are content to keep what they have. Imagine the chaos if everyone had free access to the Bureau’s complete range of letter tools, and if there were no laws about how to use them.”
There’s a brief pause.
“Do you think the protesters would feel happier if there had been a citizen referendum where their position had been voted down? The outcome would have been just the same, but they would feel much more responsible for it; surely an unpleasant position for them to be in, considering their moral objections.”
Going from “democratic accountability” to “there would be no laws and chaos” is a leap that doesn’t make sense to non-authoritarians, but I suppose it accords with their flattering self-images. We’ve heard enough of this tripe:
>put gel on astrologer
You dip out a pea-sized quantity of gel and rub it gently onto the infertile astrologer. With an audible SPLORT, the infertile astrologer becomes a restoration gel rifle.
Atlantida realizes that the restoration gel rifle is now a couple of meters away from her.
She presses a button on something in her hand. Far away, a high-pitched bell rings.
“Did you have anything else you wanted to ask me? I so rarely get to talk with ordinary citizens. Only ones with clearance, and those about to go into Cold Storage. A last interview with Saint Peter.”
Well, one last question, I suppose:
>take rifle
We sidle over and casually pick up the restoration gel rifle as though we were just curious. Or maybe had an insatiable urge to tidy up.
How did you not see this coming, O oracle?
>shoot atlantida
(with the restoration gel rifle)
Her eyes follow the gesture. “Don’t you dare, you little traitor,” she says. “I have been your mother, your father, your waking up and your going to sleep, your teachers and your lovers and your friends. I am the integrity of this island. Change me and you change Atlantis forever.”
“Maybe it’s time,” I say. “Maybe part of the business of democracy is having the arguments?”
You don’t let me finish. You shoot the restoration gel rifle at Atlantida. With an audible SPLORT, Atlantida becomes an atlantida. It’s a sort of shellfish, vaguely like a clam or scallop but bigger and with different ridges.
That’s much less threatening, but she did manage to get an alarm off in time:
>take it
You pick up the atlantida. It’s heavy as a rock, because it has been fossilized.
There’s a distant sound of movement. Someone is looking for us.
We might not have much time (actually, as far as I can tell there’s no clock at this specific point in time, though waiting too long in the confrontation with Atlantida, or the next sequence, will lead to a game-over) but it might be worth trying to get back to the dais so we can homonym-paddle this clam; a restored, updated Atlantida might be a force for regeneration within Atlantis, especially if the Bureau hasn’t realized what’s happened – if we leave her here in fossil form they might just decide to keep her as is.
>w
You strain at the base of the gate, but the portcullis is much too heavy for you to lift unaided. You need some kind of mechanical advantage.
Oh, that’s right, she shot our counterweight. This response seems to indicate we need to try something different to get through the portcullis this time (which I admit I’m a bit salty about – I tried attaching the ring to the hook, at which point I would have n-removed it to make the heavy rig, but was told, implausibly, that the ring doesn’t fit on the hook).
Let’s take a quick look around to see if there’s something else that can help.
>x stamp
It is made to stamp two words: ETHICAL VETO. The discoloration shows it has indeed been used, though not, perhaps, very recently.
So Atlantida does have a formal veto power – that’s helpful (though lately more in theory than in practice, it seems like).
>x files
Even a quick look through the titles gives some idea. “DCL Plausibility studies on a syllable-removing gun.” “Economic impact study towards an S-inserter, with particular attention to factory closures and workforce reduction in the developing world.” “Single-noun Targeted Bomb.” “Popular Opinion Study Concerning Utopian Linguistics.” “Monthly Counterintelligence Report on Progress towards Manipulation of Simplified Chinese Character Set.”
There are others like this, some thin, some fat with paperwork and sticky notes.
An s-inserter sure seems like a game-changer! And it is interesting to contemplate the way that more complex orthographies would make some languages – like Chinese – more resistant to Atlantean tech. Anything else in here?
>x paintings
They look like originals. I have seen some of these portraits before, in books at school or in the museum, but was given to understand that they’d been stolen, leaving only photographs or replicas.
…why not just swap them with replicas and not mention it to the public and risk undermining the legitimacy of the museum? You sometimes get the sense the Bureau isn’t very good at this.
(We can’t examine the portraits individually; a pity, I was looking forward to learning more about Shaply and Alex’s ancestor).
>x bed
Draped in eau-de-Nil blankets, and tossed by a restless occupant.
“Water of the Nile” is a greenish color, and an indication that even Atlantida isn’t above a bit of foreign decadence.
We’re striking out here, so we’ll try the next room to the east:
Private Solarium
A window in the north wall, cut out through the cliff face, gives a view of tranquil sea under a darkening sky.
Left on a coffee table (as though waiting for maid service) is a silver tray. There are some jacks, a cloth napkin, some crumbs, and a dirty coffee cup on the silver tray.
There is an ebook reader on the chaise longue.
Here’s our exit strategy:
>x window
The window is closed.
Through the window, there’s a beautiful view of the sea; but further inspection also reveals a narrow strip of grassy ledge, really only just wide enough to stand on, before a steep descent over stones.
>open window
You open the tall window.
But we’re not ready to go yet. Anything useful on the table?
>x tray
Just matte enough to give no reflections, and stamped with a classical Atlantean pattern of overlapping olive branches and chard leaves.
On the silver tray are some jacks, a cloth napkin, some crumbs, and a dirty coffee cup (empty).
>x jacks
A set of children’s playing jacks. They are lined up, with curious precision, into the letter A.
I guess she used these as a sort of fidget toy? But this seems promising:
>remove s from jacks
You reset the device to s. There is a mad-scientist cackle, and the jacks turn into a jack. A heavy-duty jack, suitable for raising cars or other substantial objects.
We do have a substantial object to be raised, though we’ll finish looking around here first on the off-chance the remains of Atlantida’s breakfast are of interest.
>x cloth napkin
Good linen in eau-de-nil, monogrammed with a large A, and smeared with a few smudges of honey.
>x crumbs
At a guess, they come from some sort of breakfast roll or pastry.
>x cup
The residual liquid in the bottom reveals that the person whose breakfast this was takes a small amount of milk and no sugar.
…I’m not really sure what I was expecting.
>x longue
It implies afternoons of elegant indolence. Many of them.
On the chaise longue is an ebook reader.
Another French-named thing! Man, if word got out.
>x reader
An expensive recent model, silver-backed, with a glossy touch screen.
The ebook reader is currently switched off.
>turn it on
The ebook reader chimes cheerfully.
You can type search terms to look for data records.
The monocle pings happily as you sight Book search with the crosshairs.
(oops, bit of a printed name issue here).
This isn’t really a moment to try a comprehensive set of search terms – of the usual suspects (the main characters and organizations, etc.), the only one that gets a hit is ATLANTIS:
history books: The search finds some 72 titles, focused especially on Mediterranean cultures ancient and modern. The history of Atlantis, and the political history of the Bureau itself, are covered in a series of popularizing works. One book, “Wartime Operations and the Invention of Atlantida,” has evidently been read through several times.
There’s something more fun we can do with the ebook reader, though:
>shoot reader with gun
The gun fires ruggedly into the ebook reader, which shatters and then reforms as a rodeo beaker. A piece of scientific glassware with the usual measurement markings on the side, but also painted with the image of a bucking bronco.
Man, this thing really does create some real Dada stuff.
I think it’s time to move:
>open portcullis
You slip the jack under the portcullis and raise it a few feet – enough for you to slip past.
…
>flip switch
You give the switch a strong twist and turn it to swap homonym.
>put atlantida on dais
You put the atlantida on the programmable dais.
>pull lever
The programmable dais glows deep red. Almost at once Atlantida is lying on the surface. She looks very similar to her earlier self, but the differences are there. The eyes are grey now. A tattoo of a writhing squid encircles her left wrist. Her face is younger.
She gets to her feet.
“You’d better leave, quickly,” she says. “I’ll make sure your friends get out, but it will be easier if we don’t have to explain you as well.”
You could ask how to fix the fusion.
Oh, she seems much nicer (I’m assuming the grey – should that be gray now that I’m not wearing the goggles, actually? – eyes are a reference to Athena). And hey, maybe she can help us dissociate ourselves even after what’s happened – that would be a nice reward for taking this extra step!
>ask how to fix the fusion
“The two of us, Alex and Andra, we seem to be stuck together permanently. You don’t happen to know how to remove our fusion?”
She shakes her head. “We’ve never found a way to undo that effect completely,” she says. “I’m sorry. But try to listen to both your voices. One may be the weaker now, but if you try to kill that self entirely, it tends to cause a severe mental illness.”
You want to ask what Atlantida knows about synthesis.
Oh. Well, that seems like an important tip, so much better than nothing.
>ask about synthesis
“Wait, what do you know about synthesized people?” If we don’t find out now, will there be a better time?
“There have been experiments. They didn’t end well, though most didn’t collapse into a single dominant personality as quickly as you. You’ve been under unusual stress.”
There’s a brief pause.
“Hurry!” she says. “Take the window in the Solarium, climb down the beach. Don’t look back.”
Yeah, I think at long last it’s time to scarper.
>w
Atlantida follows, looking around sharply. Her expression when she sees the computers and television screens is wry, but she doesn’t say anything. No time now, perhaps.
…
>d
Atlantida accompanies us, close on our heels in the narrow space.
>e
Atlantida comes along with us.
Nice to have the backup – and of course it’ll raise fewer questions if she’s found back in her apartment.
As we enter the apartment, we see that our time is finally running out:
Someone is coming into the workshop upstairs. There’s at most a few seconds before they’ll be down the tunnel.
Let’s slow them down using the same trick she pulled:
>shoot jack
(with the restoration gel rifle)
You shoot the restoration gel rifle at the jack. With an audible SPLORT, the jack becomes some jacks.
The portcullis crashes shut.
The portcullis should at least slow down anyone coming after us. Though that’s only moderately comforting.
>e
She follows. “Go, go,” she says. “You’ve done good work today. Atlantis is grateful.”
>n
As soon as we’re through, Atlantida closes the window behind us, and we hear it lock. No evidence that we came through here, now.
Well, no evidence other than the rodeo beaker…
Precarious Perch
From up here there’s a handsome view of the sea, which isn’t so far down really. But it’s a scramble down a nearly sheer cliff for the first bit, until you make it down to the rockfall below, and it would be easy for a careless person to injure herself.
It’s hard to see through the tall window to the room behind: mostly it reflects the sea.
>x window
The window is closed.
Atlantida waves to us, then turns back to deal with any approaching guards.
>x sea
The water is quiet today – though it rarely achieves very impressive waves anyhow. The color ranges from a bright Bureau blue close to shore to a deep lapis at the horizon.
>d
It’s a nasty business lowering ourselves over the edge, with little to hold onto up here; scrabbling around with our toes for good holds; letting go with one hand to descend a little further…
But after some minutes of this painstaking process the cliff begins to slope outward more, and it’s no longer a question of climbing down a face, but rather of scrambling down over boulders. And then…
Abandoned Shore
There’s a little inlet of shore here, mostly boulders with little sand, completely cut off from the dock area and sheltered by the curve of the rock so that it wouldn’t be visible from the sea unless someone were very close in.
There is a squid in the tidal pools among the boulders.
A bollard is bolted to one of the rocks, which is curious considering the otherwise unused and inaccessible look of the spot.
An old but still serviceable kayak is drawn up and firmly shackled to the bollard.
Yay! Much more exciting than the escape route is the squid – I’d been hoping there’d be something with a q to remove somewhere in the ending critical path.
>x squid
A squid, washed into a tidal pool, but not damaged. When the tide comes back in, it will be free to go.
>remove q from squid
You reset the device to q. With a distinct whiff of sweaty animal, the squid turns into a suid. A suid is any kind of pig; this one is a sizable domestic sow, as it turns out.
(We can also make the squid a quid, of course: “A British pound coin, with the head of the Queen and everything. This one is the Scottish thistly variety.”)
Sadly, though, this isn’t the complete set of letters: I still haven’t managed to successfully remove a v, remembering only now that I never circled back to the bus station to turn the dove into a doe after I’d gotten the animate restriction removed. Oh well, we’ll have to save this achievement for a bonus update.
In the meantime, we flee! (But not before restoring the squid, of course).
>x bollard
A metal pole, painted all-weather green and bolted to a rock. Its ilk are used in more trafficked places for securing boats and so on; and indeed so is this one, despite the implausible setting.
>x kayak
A green plastic boat, designed to be used by one person with a paddle or oar. It’s seaworthy, at least for reasonable distances, and shackled to the bollard for safety.
>x shackle
They’re firmly attached and locked with a rusty lock that doesn’t look inclined to open again any time this century. I really do compliment you folks’ approach to security.
Not much of a problem:
>remove s from shackle
You reset the device to s. There is a mad-scientist cackle, and the shackles turn into a hackle. A long feather, as from the neck of a giant bird.
Time to meet Slango!
>n
It would be helpful to have something to paddle with.
That window sill would probably do in a pinch, but we can do better:
>remove l from bollard
You reset the device to l. With a distinct whiff of raw wood, the bollard turns into a board. It’s a fairly generic plank – sort of pine, by the looks of it, though constructed things tend to be a little vague on niceties such as species – and looks like it’s designed to be part of a new deck or somesuch thing.
>remove d from board
You reset the device to d. With a distinct whiff of sweaty animal, the board turns into a boar. In the old days they used to hunt these animals, and I can understand the impulse. It’s like a pig, but even uglier and bristlier, with long dangerous-looking tusky teeth coming out of both its top and bottom jaws.
The boar gives us a very nasty kind of look, and then – without any provocation, I’m sure – starts running right at us, even into the surf.
Let’s do this last step quickly:
>remove b from boar
You reset the device to b. Our hand is less than steady, but you manage to wave the letter-remover accurately enough.
The boar vanishes with a pop, and an oar falls harmlessly to the ground. It’s a light sort of oar, almost a paddle. Still probably not the ideal thing for use with a kayak, but it’ll do.
>take oar
You get the oar.
>n
With some awkwardness, you manage to push off and begin to laboriously row for open sea.
Open Sea (in the kayak)
The water stretches in all directions, but you can see off to the north where Slango’s yacht is anchored, ready to bring you back aboard. Its metallic blue shape almost blends in with the water.
If you were further around the island to the east, you might be able to see bits of the drowned city: both the buildings that were legitimately destroyed when the land sunk into the sea, and the areas where during the Civil Dispute of Standardization the authorities dumped unwanted foreign archaeological artifacts. But here I’m afraid it’s just shellfish and sand down there.
Oh, there is a drowned city on Atlantis! I very much want to go to there, but alas, our adventure is coming to an end…
>n
You come around to the aft of Slango’s yacht and give a good shout. With the help of a ladder and a hand up from Slango himself, you soon have the kayak stored, and ourselves and our possessions on deck.
Slango gels the rock easily enough. Then he and Brock turn the restoration gel on us. Slango is determined to separate you from me before he has a real talk with either of us; and it’s not until a number of swipes in that he realizes how wrong things are.
“This isn’t working,” he remarks, tossing the gel and washcloth aside.
“We’re fused,” you explain, not very coherently. “Something happened. I don’t know if it can be fixed.”
Brock looks at us for a long moment and then turns away. He vanishes into the galley.
“I’m sure he’s just gone to get you a cup of tea,” Slango says. He takes a deep breath, stands. “The T-inserter specs better be worth what Brock says they are.”
Please press SPACE to continue.
[concluded]
