text: [Themes: Science Fiction, reincarnation]
  
  > Look around
  This appears to be the hub of the Hansome's world. Along one wall
  runs a large computer bank, over which soft lights play in colours tailored for electric eyes. The far corner of the room contains a large glass cylinder that disappears through the ceiling; it is open at the bottom, where a coffin waits. The centre of the floor is taken up by a circular hatch marked "Waste Disposal". The juxtaposition is quite unpleasant, and if too much so, you could leave back west.
  
  Sitting in the middle of the floor is a black oblong, with a single red light on top which blinks intermittently.
  
  You hear the familiar snap of the robot hatch echo in the corridor.
  You turn and spot Kathleen, connected to trolley, trudging along the corridor.
  
  > put the arm in recess
  You unclip the arm from the recess. The screen flashes: "PROCESSING... PROCESSING... SYSTEM BUSY", then falls dark.
  
  Kathleen enters the room, pushing a trolley in front of it. On the trolley lies Jack Doe.
  
  You clip the robot arm into the circular recess. The screen lights up with a list of names.
  
  The robot pushes the trolley over to the coffin, performs an ingenious twist, and the body slides in.
  
  > pull Switch
  It doesn't budge.
  
  The robot flips the coffin shut. The glass cylinder seals, and in a great spiral of water rather too much like a submarine toilet, the coffin is ejected outwards and upwards. You can't help noticing its panel was never engraved. An empty coffin slides into place, by some mechanism too fast for your watery eyes to follow.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  Kathleen turns tail and leaves the room, pushing its empty trolley before it.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  From the corridor outside you hear the swish-snap of the robot hatch.
  
  > wait for a while
  Time passes...
  
  The red light on the black oblong winks.
  
  > examine computer
  The computer has one main screen, a circular recess to serve as a monodigital keyboard from which protrudes a broken robot arm and a flat black palm scanner, slightly stained with your blood. The switch for the PDD is stuck half-way down. The screen is displaying a list of names. One - "JENNY" - is flashing.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  The familiar swish-snap sound of the robot hatch gets your attention.
  
  > wait
  Time passes...
  
  Time passes...
  
  Time passes...
  
  You hear the familiar snap of the robot hatch echo in the corridor.
  You turn and spot Kathleen, connected to trolley, trudging along the corridor.
  
  Time passes...
  
  Kathleen enters the room, pushing a trolley in front of it. On the trolley lies Jenny Doe.
  
  > wait awhile
  Time passes...
  
  The robot transfers the body to the coffin.
  
  > wait for a while
  Time passes...
  
  The robot flips the coffin shut, and it is ejected, presumably into the sea above.
  
  > wait for a while
  Time passes...
  
  Kathleen turns tail and leaves the room, pushing its empty trolley before it.
  
  You hear a great rumbling under the floor.
  
  > listen
  You can hear the low hum emanating from the computer bank.
  
  > put the arm in recess
  You clip the robot arm into the circular recess. The screen lights up with a list of names.
  
  From the corridor, you hear the sound of the robot hatch opening and closing.
  
  > examine the screen
  The list on the screen reads:
  DOE, JEREMY
  DOE, JOSEPHINE
  DOE, JULIA
  DOE, JOHN
  
  Jeremy's name is currently blinking.
  
  > turn the arm
  You turn the arm one notch, and the name JOHN in the list begins to blink.
  
  The familiar swish-snap sound of the robot hatch gets your attention.
  
  > take the arm
  You unclip the arm from the recess. The screen flashes: "PROCESSING... PROCESSING... READY", then falls dark.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  You hear the familiar snap of the robot hatch echo in the corridor.
  You turn and spot Victoria, connected to trolley, trudging along the corridor.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  Victoria enters the room, pushing a trolley in front of it, on which lies Jeremy and Jeremy's peg-leg. It is heading for the coffin, but there is a sudden loud grumbling from under the floor and the robot stops dead. Before you spot the connection between the trolley's position and the waste-disposal hatch, the trolley has been tipped up by a neat shudder of Victoria's lower limbs and Jeremy has slid down in the compartment in the floor. The coffin remains empty, and appears not to have noticed that's its snack has been thrown away by the waiter.
  
  The robot motors quietly out of the room westward, leaving the trolley behind, lolling flat on the floor once more. The waste-disposal hatch slides shut. Or, well, almost shut. Jeremy's peg-leg protrudes, obstructing the closing of the cover.
  
  > get the leg
  The hatch has gripped it obliquely, and it's trapped on something inside the compartment (an armpit, perhaps).
  
  > open hatch
  You pull at the hatch, but don't have quite enough strength to move it with your hands. Jeremy's peg-leg slides a bit toward you.
  
  > get the leg
  You lever open the hatch with the peg-leg, which finally comes free in your hands.
  
  Inside, your eyes are met by an appalling sight. Jeremy is crumpled in the bottom of the compartment, whose lower door is not sealed, but rather filled by a thick green sludge, which oozes between his splayed limbs.
  
  And as you look down, the sludge looks up. You leap back.
  
  > examine the sludge
  You lean back toward the hole.
  
  There is a surge of movement from inside the hatch, and then an eruption of cobalt goop as a tentacle surges out. It feels at the air, back and forth like the foil of a fencer, swiping toward your face.
  You recoil, stumble, fall back flat upon the trolley. The suckers, blood-tipped already, follow the sound, soon hovering mere inches from your face.