Start of a transcript of
No Time To Lose
A text adventure by J. Robinson Wheeler
Version Alpha 8.00 Release 1 / Serial number 051110 / Inform v6.21(G0.36) Library 6/10 SD
Interpreter version 0.5.4 / VM 3.1.2 / Library serial number 000710(bp)
>listen
You strain to hear something else going on, but all is quiet.
>get clothes
(first getting out of bed)
You put your feet on the floor, kicking something heavy. It's the manual for the time machine. You were going to look through it again when you got up today, in case it made any more sense.
The time machine, you think again, as the smell of ozone makes one last pass through your nostrils before dispersing. Either the machine that you left sitting in your basement -- a basement which you didn't even know you had, until recently -- which you didn't have, until you --
Someone's activated it. Is it gone? What about the one in the clearing? And what was it you got up to do, again?
>get manual
You pick up the time machine manual by the spine. It flops open to a technical chapter you never looked at before.
>read it
The page in question has to do with the calibration for the dial, the machine's base-point settings, and the ability to make more discrete jumps than ten or twenty years at a time. Hey, the in-between years. Those might be interesting to visit.
If you open the compartment on the back of the machine and use a screwdriver to remove the plate, you can access the calibration controls in question.
There is a sidebar on this page, marked with a red alert symbol.
>i
You are carrying:
the time machine manual
You are wearing:
some dirty clothes
>get a screwd
You can't see any such thing.
>oops screwdriver
You can't see any such thing.
>x red alert symbol
The sidebar stresses the importance of a stabilizing element, in the form of a microchip-laden card (see Appendix D for schematics), which under no circumstances should be tampered with or removed. Without it, the machine is unable to make controlled time jumps; where you end up is anyone's guess, and returning to the time you started from is nearly impossible, owing to something called Pilader's Drift. (See also: Footnote 1, "Eddies in the Space-Time Continuum.")
>appendix
That's not a verb I recognize.
>footnote
I didn't understand that number.
>footnote D
I didn't understand that number.
>appendix D
That's not a verb I recognize.
>Footnote 1
[1] Is he, then? (See also: Footnote 2, "Gratuitous references to other people's jokes.")
But seriously:
Dr. Ashley Pilader (1964-?), a theoretician who served as a consultant on the fabrication of the prototype time machine (ca. 2018-2022), first postulated the later-proven instability drift in her 2011 paper, "Navigating the Topology of Time." Later research proved that stabilization was mathematically possible, and through her involvement on the time machine prototype, a stabilizing element was successfully engineered and in place when the first trials took place on May 23, 2021.
You lift your head from the page, something nagging at you about the dates you see listed throughout the manual. Unless you're mistaken (and at this point, you are willing to allow for the possibility), the date today is April 30, 1994. The last time jump you made, when you saw the future of your own house as a museum dedicated to the invention of the time machine, was only twenty years ahead, but that is too soon to be reconciled with the dates in the manual.
You can think of two reasons to explain the discrepancy. One is that time machines were eventually used to anachronously create the museum, or the last jump you made was, somehow, a lot farther ahead than twenty years. Perhaps even a hundred.
>note 2note 2
[2] Those responsible have been sacked.
>get up
But you aren't in anything at the moment.
>take a shower
You can't see any such thing.
>l
Master bedroom
The shades are drawn, making it hard to guess what time of day it is. Your bedroom is normally not quite as dishevelled as this, but then again, neither are you. The sheets of your bed are tangled and rumpled. A large dresser that used to sit against the wall in the corner of the room has been scraped aside, and it now juts at an awkward angle. The master bathroom is east, and the doorway leading to the rest of the house is to the north.
The secret door in the southeast corner of the room is ajar.
>se
Secret passage
The secret passage is a narrow hallway, only about twelve feet long and three and a half feet wide. The walls are bare plaster and sheet rock. The door to the outside is south, and the door to the bedroom is northwest. A crudely-carved staircase leads down to a concrete chamber twenty feet underground.
>look south
(the south door)
The door doesn't look like much from this side. There is a latch to open it from this side, and there are various exposed springs and tumblers.
>x springs and tumblers
Which do you mean, the northwest door or the south door?
>both
Sorry, you can only have one item here. Which exactly?
>south door
You can't use multiple objects with that verb.
>shake fist at IF
You can't see any such thing.
>IF rumbles back, "You got me"
You seem to want to talk to someone, but I can't see whom.
>anyway
That's not a verb I recognize.
>*add verb "anyway" -> 'hee-hoo.' 'hup.' 'anyway, so - '
You seem to want to talk to someone, but I can't see whom.
>transcript
Transcripting is already on.
>yay
Why thank you.
>s
South of house
The ground slopes down slightly here, and the wall of the house looms an extra story high because of it. There is a tiny window high in the wall, about 30 feet up. There is a rope dangling from the window, and a tire is tied to its bottom end. A little path made by you on your many daily walks leads southwest into the woods. You can walk around your house to the northwest and northeast. The secret door is open to the north.
A beautiful, leafy tree is growing here next to the house, right where you always thought it should.
>x rope
Oh yeah, is that still here? That's hilarious. You left the rope and the tire dangling from the attic window after shimmying down. It's still tied to a pipe up there, if you recall correctly. Seems like you did that years ago, instead of just last night. Then again, you did do things last night that technically were years ago, so.
>x tree
It's still a whopper! If you did nothing else right last night, you at least planted this. It looks especially pretty in the late-morning light.
>shake tree
You give the tree a good-ol' shake.
>climb it
You shimmy up the branches. You're getting pretty good at this by now.
Mid-way up tree
You are mid-way up the tree, which extends up another 15 feet. A strong branch here extends horizontally from the trunk. You can climb even farther up from here, or back down to the ground.
>extend
That's not a verb I recognize.
>funny, you said it twie
You seem to want to talk to someone, but I can't see whom.
>never mind.
That's not a verb I recognize.
>(grumble)
That's not a verb I recognize.
>grumble
That's not a verb I recognize.
>mutter
That's not a verb I recognize.
>shout
I didn't understand that sentence.
>shout boo yarls berg
(to yourself)
There is no reply.
>go branch
That's not something you can enter.
>climb the branch.
It's sturdy, but you'd rather not take the foolish risk of putting your whole weight on it.
>hm.
That's not a verb I recognize.
>l
Mid-way up tree
You are mid-way up the tree, which extends up another 15 feet. A strong branch here extends horizontally from the trunk. You can climb even farther up from here, or back down to the ground.
>x branch
It's a long, sturdy branch. In the daylight, you can see the abrasions in the bark where the tire swing used to be tied to it.
>x abrasiojns
You can't see any such thing.
>x abrasions
It's a long, sturdy branch. In the daylight, you can see the abrasions in the bark where the tire swing used to be tied to it.
>u
Treetop
You're as high in the tree as your weight will let you climb. The view from here is incredible. The window in the side of the house is right in front of you to the north.
>x view
The sun is starting to climb high in the sky, and seems to be boiling off an early morning cloud cover. It's going to be a magnificent day. From here, you can see the big rock to the southwest, and the clearing a little ways beyond it. You can't quite tell what's in the clearing from here. Looking more to the northeast, you see people bustling about the shopping village.
>look southwest
To the southwest you see the big rock and the clearing beyond it. Beyond that, you see the cement drainage trench that runs southeast to northwest, passing just beyond your property line.
>d
Mid-way up tree
You are mid-way up the tree, which extends up another 15 feet. A strong branch here extends horizontally from the trunk. You can climb even farther up from here, or back down to the ground.
>d
South of house
The ground slopes down slightly here, and the wall of the house looms an extra story high because of it. There is a tiny window high in the wall, about 30 feet up. There is a rope dangling from the window, and a tire is tied to its bottom end. A little path made by you on your many daily walks leads southwest into the woods. You can walk around your house to the northwest and northeast. The secret door is open to the north.
A beautiful, leafy tree is growing here next to the house, right where you always thought it should.
>sw
Path in the woods
This little spot is one of your favorite places to sit and think. A well-trod path winds through a natural grove of cedar and live oak trees. That timeless landmark, the large rock, juts up out of the ground here, forcing the path to curve around it. The path leads northeast to your house, and the clearing is visible to the southwest.
You pause as your ears catch a noise coming from the clearing, a sort of scrambling movement that's hard to define.
>listen
You're pretty sure there's somebody in the clearing.
>sw
As you enter the clearing, someone takes off running through the trees to the south.
Clearing
The woods part in a marvelous natural clearing here. Late-morning light streams prettily through the canopy of spring leaves above. The ground is hard and flat and clean. Your footpath leaves the clearing to the northeast, heading back to the house. Just through the trees to the south, you see the cement drainage trench.
Aww, man. The old wheelbarrow has been unceremoniously dumped off to the side, spilling its contents on the ground. Strewn around it you see: your car key, your ATM card, the divining rod, three library books that really ought to be returned (especially since you stole two of them from the deposit slot), a crowbar and a shovel.
The time machine is still here, but it looks like it's been tampered with: the compartment is open, and a panel inside that looks like it's been jimmied open. That screwdriver you carted around last night is lying underneath it, instead of with the rest of your stuff.
>s
Drainage trench
You're in a wide cement trench with gently sloping walls that seems to go for miles in a northwest/southeast orientation, providing run-off drainage for this area of town. A rusty, corrugated pipe, with a mouth wide enough to climb into, juts out of the east side of the slope. To the north, you see the edge of the woods that surround the clearing.
A hinged metal grate lies in the middle of a slab of concrete, sunk into the ground.
Just as you arrive, you see someone's head just disappearing into the grate. Before you can reach it, the escaping figure bangs the grate shut, and you hear a fumbling clatter of metal on metal from below.
[Your score has just gone up by two points.]
>dang
That's not a verb I recognize.
>save
Ok.
>script off
End of transcript.
Start of a transcript of
No Time To Lose
A text adventure by J. Robinson Wheeler
Version Alpha 8.00 Release 1 / Serial number 051110 / Inform v6.21(G0.36) Library 6/10 SD
Interpreter version 0.5.4 / VM 3.1.2 / Library serial number 000710(bp)
>script off
End of transcript.
Start of a transcript of
No Time To Lose
A text adventure by J. Robinson Wheeler
Version Alpha 8.00 Release 1 / Serial number 051110 / Inform v6.21(G0.36) Library 6/10 SD
Interpreter version 0.5.4 / VM 3.1.2 / Library serial number 000710(bp)
>Can't find where is saving to. Directory.
That's not a verb I recognize.
>script off
End of transcript.
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