Johnny wanders the hallways aimlessly, trying to remember what he was supposed to do until he realizes he's been walking around without his helmet on. Jesus Christ, if he'd walked into a depressurized zone of the station, he could have died! He decides to go to the only place it could possibly be: his [[personal quarters.|Personal Quarters]]
<img src="games.jpg">\n\nJohnny Spaceman looks long and hard at his personal computer, and then at his laser pistol, and then at the keyboard, and then at the wall for a few seconds and then at his personal computer again. In this instant, he decides the best thing to do would be to play video games. In particular, an old-timey 21st-century interactive fiction game, re-made for the modern era. It's called Implausible Maze, and it stars a group of spunky and hilarious children and their attempts to make sense of the <i>craziest</i>, <i>wackiest</i>, and most <i>Satanic</i> mystery ever!\n\n[[Johnny begins playing Implausible Maze|Implausible Maze]]
You have no need for sleep.\n\n<<back>>
<img src="darkness underneath.jpg">\n\nYou are [[Amaya]]. You live deep underground, deeper than any surface-dweller has come with their drills or rock-magic.\n\nIt is dark here. Dark and quiet, with the smell of potential thick in the air.\n\nWhat will you do?\n\n[[Talk to Friends|Amaya Friends]]\n[[Sleep|Amaya Sleep]]\n[[Meditate|Amaya Meditate]]
"Isn't that the way things always go? You and your date go to a dinner party with another couple and it busts out into a buttfucking festival."\n\nSometimes you can judge a book by its cover. Its back cover, anyway.\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
<img src="cave bookshelf.jpg">\n\nThe Adventure Kids come to a room carved out roughly from the surrounding rock. There is a bookshelf against the far wall.\n\n"There's the bookshelf we came here for!" says Naomi.\n<<if $tempt is "greed">>\nSarah is enraged by this. "You said we were coming here to get some weapons!"\n\n"No, I said we'd find treasure. Books are treasure," Naomi says.\n\n"That's not what you said!"\n<<else if $tempt is "adventure">>\nSarah is enraged by this. "You said we were coming here to kill monsters!"\n\n"No, I said we were going to do some fun adventure stuff. Books are an adventure," Naomi says.\n\n"That's not what you said!"\n<<else>>\n"Who cares about stupid books!" Sarah shouts.\n\n"Well, <em>some of us</em> are able to read them," Naomi says.\n\n"You're stupid and I hate you!"\n<<endif>>\n"Hey, stop fighting," says Andrew. "What sort of books are they anyway?"\n\n[[Examine a book]]\n\n\n\n\n
"Wires, robotic in nature, coursed through his pupils, spreading through his body of pure fire as if to make flame cybernetic. The very bleakness of his gaze burnt the light and made it black as a laser of shadows."\n\n"Upon the Mesozoic verdure, the sun cast its dawn light, giving life to the hovering woodland realm in the form of photosynthetic vitality that sparkled betwixt the morning arbor."\n\n"Their words, like poison, shot at him."\n\n"A mental storm of wind exploded from his mind."\n\n"Totality. It was one of the most powerful words that could be used, aside from profanities and threats."\n\n"In the bleeding heaven, hundreds of nukes were set off by morons who decided it was a good idea to strike the warheads with their blades, fangs and claws."\n\n"'Slash thy breath, oh putrid one. I am stronger than you ten times ten!'\n"'What does that mean?'\n"'That means that if I had ten units of strength you would have one.'\n"'If that were the case then I would only be ten times as strong as you, not ten times ten as you said.'\n"The amphiptere opened its mouth for a rebuttal, but his immediate response was a sock in the face."\n\n"Dennagon's face was as icy as a stone locked in frigid carbon dioxide."\n\n"His prodigious body hit the terrain like a gauntlet around a soaked cloth."\n\n"'I'm snickering at your ignorance, dolt. In uncertainty lies certainty. They're one and the same, twins of opposing nature.'\n"'Certainty is uncertainty's brother? I may as well say that I am my father's father!'\n"'Theoretically, you could be. Certitude implies that something is irrefutable, yet in complete darkness, I can say that anything is certain.'\n"'Why?'\n"'Because I can never be certain that anything is happening, so all possibilities must be happening at once.'\n"'So I I cannot observe something, then it is not real,' he correctly stated."\n\n"Mystified, he approached the ruins as if he had never seen them before.\n"'I've seen ruins like these before.'"\n\n\nGod, it just keeps going. You really need to find the time to read this some day.\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
"I'm a motherfucking detective, see, with a motherfucking capital M. Somebody offed my sister, and it's payback time, right after I jerk off, see a movie, run around the woods, and go to a folk concert."\n\n\nProbably the greatest novel of our times.\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
WELCOME TO... <b>SPACE ZONE: THE INTERACTIVE FICTION</b>\n\nTo begin the game, press "Begin." To save yourself the trouble, close your internet browser and do something productive with your life right this instant.\n\n[[Begin|Begin]]\n\nOr you can jump ahead to a new section if that doesn't feel like cheating to you.\n\n[[Jump to the maze|Implausible Maze]]\n[[Jump into some books!|Examine a book]]
Look at all these books! There must be like thirty of them, more than anyone could read in a hundred lifetimes. The children probably won't have the patience to read more than a few paragraphs, maybe even just a few words, out of any of these things.\n\nWhich book would they/you/I like to peruse ironically? (We're about to get real loose with narrative perspective, but just be fucking cool, it's a game for chrissake.)\n\n[[Poorly Planned Flash Fiction|Poorly Planned Flash Fiction]]\n[[You Got the Bone|You Got the Bone]]\n[[Murder a la Mode|Murder a la Mode]]\n[[Hot Rod Mildred|Hot Rod Mildred]]\n[[Odd Quest 5|Odd Quest 5]]\n[[Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate|Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate]]\n[[Chilling Like Didymus|Chilling Like Didymus]]\n[[The Two Travelers|The Two Travelers]]\n[[De Vega's Run|De Vega's Run]]\n[[A Diddle Before Dying|A Diddle Before Dying]]\n[[A Heartwarming Children's Story|A Heartwarming Children's Story]]\n[[For Ashley Sgromo|For Ashley Sgromo]]\n[[Rocking the Cockmonster for Fun and Profit|Rocking the Cockmonster for Fun and Profit]]\n[[Ass-Eating Gigawhores of Bartruthazon 7|Ass-Eating Gigawhores of Bartruthazon 7]]\n[[Fistfuck of the Gods|Fistfuck of the Gods]]\n[[Hrignk the Raper: The Golden Duck of Salaciousness|Hrignk the Raper: The Golden Duck of Salaciousness]]\n[[Calling All Rimjobbers|Calling All Rimjobbers]]\n[[The Way Things Ought to Be|The Way Things Ought to Be]]\n[[Clash of the Clitpinchers|Clash of the Clitpinchers]]\n[[And Then There Was Coprophagia|And Then There Was Coprophagia]]\n[[Of Kings and Cornholers|Of Kings and Cornholers]]\n[[Dildo Bramhammer and the Shaft of Petruviance|Dildo Bramhammer and the Shaft of Petruviance]]\n[[On the Road with Sphincter O'Flannahan and the Daily Uranus|On the Road with Sphincter O'Flannahan and the Daily Uranus]]\n[[The First Two Lives of Ramjob Corkshire|The First Two Lives of Ramjob Corkshire]]\n[[Licking It Before You Put It In|Licking It Before You Put It In]]\n[[Straight Women Forced to Pretend to be Lesbians by Market Forces|Straight Women Forced to Pretend to be Lesbians by Market Forces]]\n[[Nothing but Really Close Shots of Balls and Ass|Nothing but Really Close Shots of Balls and Ass]]\n[[Killing Lincoln|Killing Lincoln]]\n[[If Einstein Was So Smart Then Why Are We Peeing All Over His Posters?|If Einstein Was So Smart Then Why Are We Peeing All Over His Posters?]]\n[[Fucking Dogs, Possum Style|Fucking Dogs, Possum Style]]\n[[Anal Devastation 3: Vanessa Bliss and Sara|Anal Devastation 3: Vanessa Bliss and Sara]]\n[[The Holy Bible|The Holy Bible]]\n[[On the Jews and Their Lies|On the Jews and Their Lies]]\n\nOr, you know what, fuck these dumbass books, lets get back to [[exploring|Maze Library 2]]\n\n
"Only the evil magus Nightsworder stood between Dildo Bramhammer and the double-virgin princess, Lady Tightwhisper.\n\n"'It is time I show you what puts the "hammer" in "Bramhammer,"' he said to the nefarious spellcaster. "And you, what puts the "dildo" in "Dildo,"' he added to the royal offspring with a wink. His voice was so masculinely erotic that her vagina became erect as a thundering mountain."\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]\n\n
Holy shit! This book was illustrated by Andrew Hussie! And from the time it was written and the content you observe at a glance, it's clear that Homestuck was lifted entirely by the unscrupulous dastard Hussie. All those ill-gotten millions...it makes you so sick you vow to read Hussie's future masterpieces with a furrowed brow of ambivalence.\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
It's just some random maze-looking art for the opening screen. This isn't the actual maze the game is about.\n\n<<back>>
<img src="begin.jpg">\n\nJohnny Spaceman stands smiling like an idiot in a random hallway of the [[Space Station|Space Station]] he's been assigned to. Also assigned to him: an [[IMPORTANT MISSION|Mission Statement]]. What kind of thing do you think Johnny will do?\n\n[[Inspect the air duct|Airduct]]\n[[Inspect that piece of fine art|Fine Art]]\n\n[[Find his space helmet, to prepare him for this dangerous and important mission|Helmet]]
From glancing at the title page, you see the full title is, "You Wanted the Boner, You Got the Bone". The book seems to be about the viability of reverse mortgages in a bear market. A cursory examination does not reveal any instance of the title metaphor in the text.\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
"For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves"--\n\nGod, more ass stuff, you can see where this is going.\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
<img src="marmaduke.jpg">\n\nWoof woof! I'm Marmaduke, the funny dog!\n\n<<back>>
I'd go homo for Ashley Sgromo,\nThough I don't much believe that I'd have to.\n'Cause if you laugh when she says she's a woman\nWhen I say I'm a man, you should laugh too.\n\nFor if a man's made by the cock he's displayed\nThen I must say I'm hardly qualified,\nAnd it can't be the Y in my chromosomes; why\nWould one line here or there leave you mollified?\n\nSee, a man is a thing that drives a big car\nAnd likes guns and porno and sports,\nAnd a man likes to swear and to grow body hair\nAnd play X-Box in basketball shorts.\n\nA man likes to fight and to stay out all night\nAnd then lie about where he's been drinking,\nHis manners lack grace and when he leaves your place\nHe'll leave bathrooms and kitchen sinks stinking.\n\nAnd men desire lines that are sharp, dark, and fine\nbetween women and men and...no more,\n'Cause if they're not used to to a thing, they're confused,\nAnd confusion incites men to war.\n\nBut I'd go homo for Ashley Sgromo,\nThough I don't much believe that I'd have to,\nAnd if you laugh when she says she's a woman,\nWhen I say I'm a man, you should laugh too.\n\nIf you've cause to doubt me just look all about me,\nYou'll find not a car or a gun,\nNo weights, no gym bags, no well-worn porno mags,\nAnd hair on my chest: not a one.\n\nI'm not one for spirits and, if you would hear it,\nI'd gladly recount you my travels,\nAnd as for disputes, I just grin and look cute\nAnd sigh as the conflict unravels.\n\nWhen moving I glide, and my mother's chief pride\nIs the etiquette I demonstrate,\nAnd so soft is my voice that I've often no choice\nBut to repeat and gesticulate.\n\nNow as for fine lines, well, you've heard some of mine,\nAnd nothing on Earth is so sure\nBut that meanings are blurred by inadequate words,\nStill, I hope that I'm savvied by her\n\nThat I'd go homo for Ashley Sgromo,\nThough I don't much believe that I'd have to,\n'Cause if you laugh when she says she's a woman\nWhen I say I'm a man you should laugh too.\n\nBut if I'm not a man then perhaps someone can\nTell me which box I should put an X in,\nThat I'm maleness-deficient, can that be sufficient\nTo enter the contrary sex in?\n\nWell, women, it might be, are wiser than me,\nand kinder and gentler to boot,\nIt may be I'm light on the virtues you'd cite\nAs composing the feminine root.\n\nBut one thing or another, I'd say it's no bother\nTo find myself stuck in-between,\nBecause straddling here I see both sides so clear,\nO the beautiful things I have seen.\n\nAnd no woman I see is more woman to me\nThan this flat-chested, dick-packing wife,\nThere's a lie that you pride and a truth you deride\nWith your claims to defining her life.\n\nYes, I'll go homo for Ashley Sgromo\nIf the world all agrees that I have to,\nBut don't fucking laugh when she says she's a woman\nOr I'll break your damn nose and I'll laugh too.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
<<set $tempt = "greed">>\n\nYou've seeded Naomi's mind to prepare her for this. It's a simple matter to poke her dream memories of treasure to the surface.\n\n\nMATT THIS IS ANOTHER COMIC SECTION TO DRAW\nIT'S ONLY TWO PANELS THIS TIME THOUGH\n\n\nNaomi: Because there's treasure there! We'll get all kinds of neat stuff, like jewels or weapons.\nSarah: I do like weapons.\nAndrew: Um, I don't know...\n\nSarah: Stop whining! Let's go find the maze!\n\n\n[[The kids enter the maze |Maze Front Door]]
Station 101 was built for the sole purpose of having a platform to build a much larger, stupider space station on top of it. Having completed it's mission and launching Station 202 into orbit and almost immediate destruction, Station 101 has become a sort of holding ground for crackpot scientists, do-nothing management and colossal fuck-ups in the Space Corps. You requested transfer here yourself rather than face the humiliation of being forced into it.\n\n<<back>>
So, I mean, I'm not going to look too closely at this one, but it seems to be describing human beings having sex with dogs, but then playing dead in the middle of the act. Really, it makes no sense.\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]\n\n\n
Both lives are in ass porn, let's move on.\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
<img src="laser pistol.jpg">\n\nJohnny Spaceman looks longingly at the "suicide" setting of his laser pistol. But he has several missions to finish before he can go through with it, one of which is to masturbate to all of the pornography he has saved on his computer. Every day the amount of pornography on his computer doubles rendering Johnny effectively immortal.\n\n<<back>>
The title isn't ironic, and this isn't a commentary on the porn industry, this is really just a very literal description of heterosexual, female porn stars having sex with each other. I don't get it, I don't understand who chose the title. I mean, they seem to understand--I don't know, I just don't know. I don't know anything anymore. My whole world is a lie.\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
Ok, so there's this police force, but they're really all just this secret cult for butt sex, and--man, what's with this book shelf and all the ass stuff?\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
"A Gorbasm, ladies & gentlemen, is fake. A Gorbasm is a phony feeling of bliss and euphoria. Mikhail Gorbachev was credited by the media, and by many liberals in this country, with preserving the peace and security of the planet threatened by warmonger Ronald Reagan, and with bringing freedom to Eastern Europe and what used to be the Soviet Union.\n\n"To me, the Reagan defense buildup showed that we could maintain a world-class defense and a first-class economy, and the Soviets crumbled trying to keep up.\n\n"The time for worldwide jubilation was the day the USSR disintegrated. Gorbachev’s ouster has given the best reason in the world to have that one final, but sincere, Gorbasm. For now that the communist regime has imploded, there truly is a chance for lasting peace."\n\n\n\nWhy is everything on this bookshelf so fucking disgusting?\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]\n
Space Zone: The Interactive Fiction
It's just--how is this a book? There's no plot. This is just detailed directions for staging a fifty-woman orgy. And there's like, everything described in here, the women's hair color and weight and height and their ages, down to the day. Oh man, some of them have names, and some of them are just identified as "the girl in the blue house on Madison" or "the mailcarrier who subs out for the regular guy sometimes." \n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
A Diddle Before Dying\n\nby Priya Tamilarasan\n\nI was leaned back in my chair, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and imagining all the sons of bitches I’d like to shoot in the face, when the fat man burst in, rattling the glass in the door and warping my floorboards with his impressive heft. He was out of breath from ascending the three-foot handicap ramp between the parking lot and the front door. I could tell from his matching suit and non-spaghetti-stained tie that he came from a higher stratum of society than my usual clients.\n\n“I need your help immediately,” he managed to squeeze out between breaths, nearly suffocating in the process.\n\n“Sit down and cool it,” I ordered through the corner of my mouth, refusing to remove my cigarette. I kept my back to him as I walked to the demilune to pour myself a slug of Dr. Gumpus Wainwright’s Discount Whiskey-flavored Antiseptic Serum and Industrial Solvent. “Can I get you a glass?”\n\n“There’s no time! No time!” The fat man grabbed me by the shoulder and tried to turn me around. The last smartass who tried to get between me and my booze is wearing plastic teeth and shitting through a garden hose, and her face looks like someone took a backhoe to Eleanor Roosevelt. This guy smelled of money, though, and if there’s one thing I hate more than a fair fight with a man, it’s a missed payday. I escorted him to a chair.\n\n“Lookie-no-touchey, fat man. Sit down and tell me the problem.”\n\nHe sat on the edge of the chair, his back unbending and his head craned upward, like an obedient dog staring at a lonely teenager’s peanut-butter-covered crotch.\n\n“Now you be a good dog,” I said, “and there will be plenty of peanut butter to go around.”\n\n“What?”\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]\n
"What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:\n\n"First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly -- and I myself was unaware of it -- will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.\n\n"Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.\n\n"Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. \n\n"Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses (Deuteronomy 17 [:10 ff.]) in which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death, although Moses clearly adds: "what they teach you in accord with the law of the Lord." Those villains ignore that. They wantonly employ the poor people's obedience contrary to the law of the Lord and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the same way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in Matthew 16 {:18], "You are Peter," etc, inducing us to believe all the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind. He did not teach in accord with the word of God, and therefore he forfeited the right to teach.\n\n"Fifth, I advise that safe­conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let they stay at home. \n\n"Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they possess. Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God's blessing in a good and worthy cause.\n\n"Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen 3[:19]). For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants."\n\n\nMartin Luther, what a shit. How can people still call themselves Lutherans, go to Lutheran churches? If you're dumb enough to like something not completely racist that he said then good for you, but man, do you have to name yourselves after this douchebag?\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
Computer Cat <topsecretmission-noreply@google.cat>\n\t\n3:50 PM (1 hour ago)\n\t\t\nto jspaceman-2310\n\nDear valued employee or conscript:\n\nGeneral MASCARA from Planet EARTH has deemed species:\nSPACE BEES\nto be a threat to the continued survival of species:\nHUMANS\nin SECTOR 0001.0001. You have been selected to help with this vital mission! You have been granted access to Level-2 Defensive Weaponry and are expected to help exterminate SPACE BEES, please do so at your earliest convenience or face performance review.\n\nThanks,\nComputer Cat\n\n- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -\n\nTo unsubscribe from employment, please send a notarized de-registration form to employment@spacecorps.com\n\n\n_______________________________________________________________\n\n<<back>>\n
Dumb.\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
Ah, it's a roll of quarters. Johnny Spaceman uses these to do his laundry, which costs money. He also occasionally flattens them on railroad tracks.\n\n<<back>>
Like, seriously, I don't understand how these are books. This is how five-minute YouPorn videos are made, but there is no plot, NO PLOT here at all. Who in the world would write this thing, let alone buy it? This is the worst bookshelf in the world. Hitler's bookshelf couldn't be worse.\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
You might think that "Batruthazon 7" is just some dumb sci-fi name for an alien planet or a space station or something, but the dumb alien planet is actually just called "Batruthazon," and this book is the seventh in the series.\n\nYour next question is probably what a gigawhore is. Well, apparently it's a woman, ostensibly, with a torso that stretches across several miles of cleared space and that is covered at regular intervals and on all sides with orifices that permit--well, that was the most horrifying opening paragraph you've ever read.\n\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
<img src="air vent.jpg">\n\nA high-pitched hissing noise emanates from the air duct. Probably from all the high-pressure air being piped out of it.\n\nTypical Station 101 airduct, nothing unusual here.\n\n<<back>>
"A wizard set a thornéd trap\nWith water welled of wildest Styx,\nAnd old Milenus pouted there,\nWithin the wetted bricks.\nThe demon gave, in trade for flight,\nA choice of pain or joy at will,\nThe wizard, cruel and envious,\nTook quick the sweeter pill.\n\n"Soon every kingdom fell to knees\nBefore the bliss that he bestowed,\nAnd when resistance turned an eye,\nAll blood and humours flowed.\nNo warrior could refuse to bow,\nNo matter consequences grave,\nThey came to fight and stayed entranced\nIn worlds the wizard gave.\n\n"And yet the wizard met defeat\nFrom treachery within:\nA leper penetrated rank\nAnd held his silent sin.\nThe opiatic kingdom sank\nInto diseaséd din;\nLaughed the demon in its freedom: I win."\n\n\n\nWhatever.\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
Johnny Spaceman boots up his personal computer, which takes several minutes despite vast technological advances.\n\n<img src="personal computer.jpg">\n\nThis is his personal desktop, what should Johnny do?\n\n[[Inspect pornography folder|Pornography]]\n[[Use universal locator software to locate your Space Helmet|Ennui]]\n[[Play video games|Video Games]]
The Adventure Kids go to a construction site. They climb down into a pit that's been dug out in preparation for laying a foundation. In one of the pit's corners, there is a crack that widens into a cavernous space containing the ruins of a warehouse. They enter the warehouse carefully, using flashlights to check its crumbling walls for openings. Once inside it (though it's in such a state of disrepair that the inside and outside are scarcely different), Naomi moves quickly to the rear corner, and brushes aside dirt from the floor to reveal a trapdoor. They open it after a few minutes of effort, and descend down a long dark stairwell. Its walls start out as cut blocks of stone, but after half an hour, they reach bedrock. The stairs continue to descend. Eventually the steps level off, and they walk forward along a flat surface, until reaching a door.\n\n<img src="cave door entrance.jpg">\n\n[[Go back|Coward Andrew]]\n[[Open the door|Maze Library]]
Amaya's playable sections were added in this remake. The original 21st-century version of the game dropped you in without anything about her at all, and some purists say the story works better that way. But you like getting to see what she's up to right from the start.\n\nBesides, the original game's graphics were even worse.\n\n<<back>>
Oh, right, that's what that means.\n\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
Ok, so Sphincter O'Flannahan is like some kind of gonzo journalist, I guess, and the Daily Uranus is this independent newspaper out of Detroit that specializes in stories about asses. You might think this is going to be a road trip story, but it's just O'Flannahan walking around the streets of Detroit and talking to black men about women's asses. Horrifyingly racist and only distantly arousing.\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
"The Story of a Woman Who Goes to the Store to Buy Baby Formula Because Her Milk Production (See She Just Had a Baby and Was Breastfeeding) Has Kind of Dried Up But ('Up' Isn't a Preposition back There) While She's There Her House Catches on Fire or Something and So When She Gets Home Her Baby Is Dead So the Money She Spent on the Formula Is Wasted\n\nOh no, my money and my baby!"\n\n\n\n\nMan, just go return the formula. [[NEXT.|Examine a book]]\n\n
<img src="personal quarters.jpg">\n\nJohnny Spaceman arrives in his personal quarters. Here he has a roll of quarters, a laser pistol, and a personal computer. \n\nJohnny Spaceman doesn't see his space helmet, which is the one thing he needs before he can go help commit genocide on a bunch of stupid space bees. \n\nWhat kind of thing should Johnnny do?\n\n[[Inspect the roll of quarters|Roll of Quarters]]\n[[Use laser pistol to commit suicide|The Obvious Answer]]\n\n[[Use computer to look up location of your space helmet, because in the future every single thing has a tracking device planted inside it|Personal Computer]]
<img src="fine art.jpg">\n\nAh, a late 20th Century piece. This type of art, known as a "Motivational Portrait" was considered highly effective at relieving despair and depression, and as such was widely distributed in office buildings and public schools.\n\nYou shudder to think from what [[primitive depths|YOU KNOW IT]] your species has worked so hard to claw itself out of.\n\n<<back>>
<img src="personal computer.jpg">\n\nJohnny is about to start the universal location software, but is only able to hover the mouse over the icon for a few seconds before deciding not to. He can't quite explain it, but he feels like now is just not the time.\n\n<<back>>
<img src="cave bookshelf.jpg">\n\n"Wow. These weren't the sort of books I was hoping for at all," says Naomi. She puts <u>Straight Women Forced to Pretend to be Lesbians by Market Forces</u> into her treasure bag anyway.\n\nNow what?\n\n[[Dig a tunnel]]\n[[Destroy the bookcase]]\n[[Go back up the way you came]]
Booth takes a deep breath and softly pushes the door open with his knife hand. The box is dimly lit from the footlights down below. He can see only faces. No one knows he’s there. He presses his body against the wall, careful to stay in the shadows while awaiting his cue. Abraham Lincoln’s head pokes over the top of his rocking chair, just four short feet in front of Booth; then once again he looks down and to the left, at the audience.\n\n“You sockdologizing old man-trap” booms out through the theater.\n\nThe audience explodes in laughter.\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
You focus your mind until your senses drop away and your surroundings recede. You can feel-without-feeling the presence of three aboveground children, far above. You have been drawing them toward you mentally, into a state that will bring them toward you physically as well.\n\n\nMATT HERE IS A COMIC SCRIPT\nI AM SORRY THAT I DIDN'T BOTHER DRAWING IT TO PUT IN HERE BUT YOU WOULD BE BETTER AT DRAWING IT THAN ME AND [[YOU KNOW IT]]\n\n\n[Forest. Bird's-eye-view shot of three children: Sarah, Andrew, and Naomi. They stand spaced apart from each other as though at the vertices of an equilateral triangle about five feet on each side, facing inward.]\n\nNaomi: OK, guys. I found the best thing for us to do this spring break.\nAndrew: An adventure?\n\nNaomi: Yes. An ancient maze. The one I've seen in my dreams. I read up on the place, and we should be able to find some powerful stuff there.\n\nSarah: So where's the entrance?\nNaomi: That's the best part. There are hundreds of entrances, all over town.\n\nNaomi (VO): The ruins under the city had a tunnel system that hooked into it, so pretty much any building that goes deep enough will have some way in.\n[Art shows cutaway view of this.]\n\nSarah: It's back in the city? Then why did we have to come out to this stupid forest?\nAndrew: Uhh, that was my idea.\n\nSarah: WHAT!\nAndrew: I like the trees here... Why do we have to go underground anyway?\n\n[[Lure them with greed|Greed Tempt]]\n[[Lure them with promises of fun|Adventure Tempt]]
<<set $tempt = "adventure">>\nYou've seeded Naomi's mind to prepare her for this. It's a simple matter to poke her dream memories of adventure to the surface.\n\n\nMATT THIS IS ANOTHER COMIC SECTION TO DRAW\nIT'S ONLY TWO PANELS THIS TIME THOUGH\n\n\nNaomi: Because it'll be a fun adventure! It'll be really exciting, and maybe we'll get to fight some monsters.\nSarah: I do like shooting things.\nAndrew: Um, I don't know...\n\nSarah: Stop whining! Let's go find the maze!\n\n\n[[The kids enter the maze |Maze Front Door]]
Andrew whines and says he wants to go home. Sarah refuses to allow this.\n\n<<back>>
It's not philosophical or political or religious or mythological, it's just a book about fistfucking.\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
See, SEE, NOW--FUCK, what is this shit? There are no pictures--not that I want pictures, but, this just makes no sense. How can this possibly be a book? Goddamn, this is ridiculous.\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
The even-numbered chapters are brief biographies of the kings (and queens) of England, from Alfred the Great to the present. The odd-numbered chapters are narratively unrelated vignettes about anal intercourse.\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
The author raises a fair question.\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
What is gravity, then?” Ayorme asked.\n\nI huffed, which means I blew air out loudly. “Well, that’s a very complicated question.”\n\nAyorme nodded, and continued staring at me.\n\n“I mean, it’s so complicated that I can’t explain right now.”\n\n“What? Why not? We have plenty of time. How long could it possibly take to tell me what gravity is?”\n\n“Listen, it’s a very complicated subject. Some great scientists have spent their entire lives studying gravity.”\n\n“I don’t want to study it, I just want you to tell me what the word means.”\n\n“Well, gravity, it’s what, it’s what makes things stay on the ground, see?”\n\n“Things don’t stay on the ground,” Heeyorim said. “We’re on the water, in case you haven’t noticed.”\n\n“Well,” I said, rolling my eyes. (Rolling one’s eyes is a way to show that one is bored or exasperated.) “I don’t mean ‘ground’ as in dirt or solid land. I just mean, like, the floor, what’s beneath us. Gravity is what pulls you down.”\n\n“Pulls who down? Nobody’s pulling me down,” Ayorme said.\n\n“Gravity is not a person. It’s a force, an energy.”\n\n“That pulls me down? I don’t need any force or energy to pull me down. That’s what ‘down’ means. It’s the way things go.”\n\n“They go that way because of gravity! Now look, gravity is a force that all things, all matter, exerts on all other matter. It pulls them toward each other.”\n\n“All matter? All matter is pulling on me right now? I don’t feel anything.”\n\n“Well, you wouldn’t feel anything, because the pull is very, very weak! The only time you can feel it is when a lot of matter is pulling you in the same direction, which is what happens when you’re standing on a planet, because then the whole planet is pulling on you.”\n\nHeeyorim leaned over to look at Ayorme. “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”\n\nAyorme shook her head.\n\n“Of course, that’s Newtonian physics,” I said to myself. “Einstein said something different about gravity, not totally sure what it was.”\n\n“Gravity is a magic bean that is placed inside every object by a ghost in order to keep it from exploding,” a penguin interrupted. “If you ever see something explode, it’s because someone found a way to remove the bean.”\n\n“That is wrong and absurd!” I said. (“Absurd” means “very silly.”) “Explosions are caused by the sudden release of gas or energy, not magic beans.”\n\n“Then why aren’t we exploding right now?” the penguin asked. “I’m full of gas and energy.”\n\n“Explosions don’t just happen! They’re not something you have to perpetually guard against. Something has to cause them, like a chemical reaction.” (“Perpetually” means “always.” A chemical reaction is something complicated that involves chemistry and reactions.)\n\n“All I know is, nothing is pulling me anywhere, and I’m not exploding,” the penguin said. “So I’ll hold on to my magic bean, thank you very much.”\n\nBy that point the green water had completely covered the inside of the cavern. It was drifting past us as the rope held our boat in place. I noticed the torches were still shining from under the water.\n\n“How do those torches burn under water?” I asked.\n\nAyorme glanced at them. “The torches are above most of the water. The water came up from underneath.”\n\n“They’re completely covered in water. How can they burn?”\n\n“Does this god ever shut up?” a penguin asked.\n\n“I’m not a god,” I said.\n\n“Ah,” said roughly twelve penguins.\n\n“He is a god, but he’s pretending to be human,” said Ayorme. “He thinks it’s very funny to act stupid.”\n\n“He is not funny, but he is a fine actor,” a penguin said with admiration.\n\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
"'And that brings me to you, Sir Rudmund Pluggary' Said Mrs. Hennywhiffle. 'You were the only one of the surviving Bloughdoughberry Boys with the motive, opportunity, and resistance to weaponized malaria necessary to carry out the fiendish plot against Lord Plopperbottom.'\n\n"'I say,' said Sir Pluggary, 'this is most unusual conversation for a supermarket queue. Might I speak to another clerk?'\n\n"'We don't call them 'supermarkets' in this country, you rusty nipple!'"\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
"Hringk fell to one knee, unable to withstand the blistering force of the whitehot steam-like strength of the minotaur's wooden club. The bullman raised the coniferous conk buster to its apex, lingering it over the zenith of his position if he were an astrological observer, but the only stars he was interesting in were the ones that would dance like breakdancing angels around Hringk's noggin when the bludgeon of adamantine plant matter collided on a course with the massive barbarian's rock-solid steel skull.\n\n"'Now to kill the mighty Hringk,' the homobovine mused pensively out loud, stroking his treeborn shillelagh.\n\n"'A raper is not one to die so easily as at the hands of one as overconfident and egotistical as thou," Hringk ejaculated as he thrust the gem of Samanderkand into the navel of the half-quadropedal humanoid monetser ushering an era of explosions into the very soul of the beast's darkest fears.\n\n"'Not the gem of Samanderkand,' thundered the dying male cow thing as its last breath took the bus for the coast."\n\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
You have not brought friends Underneath yet.\n\n<<back>>
<img src="personal computer.jpg">\n\nJohnny spends 30 minutes browsing a pornography folder which uses more storage space than all information that even existed on the Internet in 2009 before remembering he's supposed to be working. He notices only about one percent of the images or videos he views even moderately sexually arouse him and would likely need some kind of boner pill before the day is up if he plans to crank one out before falling asleep.\n\n<<back>>
Synod for Workgroups 3.11
"I guess it's hypocritical to keep working on this kind of stuff when I've made it pretty clear what a waste of time I think it is, but interactive fiction is oddly entertaining to make even when you realize that no sensible person ought to be playing it, or reading it, or whatever you call what you do with this garbage. I'm not even sure this is a game at all, but it's not really any kind of story either. I'm just listing a bunch of book titles and then making up excerpts for them, but I'll probably get too bored of that by the end and just start skipping over them with one word, like I did with 'Hot Rod Mildred'. And did you notice that I'm not underlining the titles of books? It's because I don't know how to do it with the Twine engine, and I'm too lazy to ask. Hell, even if I knew how, I'd probably just be too fucking lazy to do it. And this is where your time is going. On this. On me."\n\n\nUh, this is a book? Why would anyone write this in a book?\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]
<img src="implausible maze start screen.jpg">\n\nJohnny Spaceman starts up Implausible Maze, and is presented with an [[exciting maze illustration splash screen]].\n\n[[Press start|ImpMaze1]]
Rocking the...ok, what is this? It's just some kind of pornography, but it's like...financial pornography. Like there are pie charts and, uh, oh, man, this is no good. No good at all.\n\n\n[[NEXT.|Examine a book]]