text: [Themes: Superhero, kids, female protagonist]
  
  > Look around
  You stand in one of the many beige, featureless corridors of the Physics building. The hall continues west, and reaches its eastern terminus here, at the door to Mom and Dad's lab.
  
  The lab door is closed.
  
  A card reader is mounted to the wall beside the door.
  
  > unlock the door with the card
  [swiping your access card in the reader]
  The green light glows, and there is a click from inside the lab door.
  
  > open the door
  You open the lab door.
  
  > go east
  You take a deep breath, and step across the threshold into the lab.
  
  > remove the pants
  [Please press a key to continue.]
  
  Part 1: Suit Yourself
  Lab
  Ever since Dad got shortlisted for the Nobel in physics and Mom's patents started making millions, the University has pretty much given them carte blanche. Consequently, this lab space is cavernous, tens of thousands of square feet, with ceilings reaching nearly five stories high. Some parts of this giant room are occupied by giant equipment, dizzyingly complex hunks of machinery at whose function you couldn't even begin to guess. Other parts are empty, save for a few tables and terminals. A ring of windows near the ceiling looks out on the distant stars. Doors lead south into the storage room and west into the hallway.
  
  You look around for Austin, but he's not here. Typical. Well, knowing your perpetually late brother, he'll be along soon enough.
  
  Amidst the general chaos of the lab, a legal pad seems to have fallen from one of the tables.
  
  The hallway door is open.
  
  The storage room door is open.
  I beg your pardon?
  
  > get the pad
  Taken.
  
  The lab door clicks and swings shut.
  
  > Examine pad
  The first page contains a few notes scribbled in your father's familiar cryptic handwriting:
  
  ES: Str -- OK
  Imp res -- OK
  E res -- ??? -- probs
  
  SS: Flt -- OK
  Fog -- OK
  E -- OK
  
  Per N, bac strange. Hi-spd? Panspermia?
  Also: c T re: sightings. Could b big. Portal poss. at mtn site?
  
  The rest of the pages are blank.
  
  > examine the machinery
  If you had a couple of days, unlimited curiosity, and several years worth of calculus and physics classes, Austin could probably explain some of this equipment to you. As it is, you prefer to be awed by its mysterious grandeur rather than the impressive feats it can no doubt perform. Luckily, Mom and Dad never pushed the science with either of you, so even though Austin ended up their prot?g? and you became a contented English major, he never got special treatment from them.
  
  > go south
  If Mom had her way, the storage room would be a neatly organized gallery of supplies, spare parts, and backup media, all efficiently arranged on the room's many metal shelving units. However, with Dad using the lab, that's not likely to happen. Oh sure, everything is on the shelves, but finding something could take the better part of a day. A door leads back north to the lab.
  
  The storage room door is open.
  
  A wooden chair sits in the middle of the storage room, with some bright blue fabric draped across it.
  
  > examine the fabric
  This appears to be a form-fitting bodysuit of some kind, tailored to fit a female body. It is bright blue, with cloud-patterned streaks of white. A combination cowl and mask is attached at the neck of the suit.
  
  > About yourself
  You haven't been looking your best lately, but you find it hard to care. Austin won't mind your casual clothes, though -- he understands that fashion isn't exactly topping your priorities right now.
  
  > examine the chair
  An ordinary wooden chair.
  
  > get the suit
  Taken.
  
  > go to the north
  You are in Mom and Dad's lab. As usual, the majority of the equipment in this enormous space is more or less a mystery to you. Also here are a few tables and terminals; a ring of windows near the ceiling looks out on the distant stars. Doors lead south into the storage room and west into the hallway.
  
  The hallway door is closed.
  
  The storage room door is open.
  
  > Go west
  [first opening the hallway door]
  
  You stand in one of the many beige, featureless corridors of the Physics building. The hall continues west, and reaches its eastern terminus here, at the door to Mom and Dad's lab.
  
  The lab door is open, revealing the enormous room beyond.
  
  A card reader is mounted to the wall beside the door.
  
  You hear footsteps in the deserted hallway, and turn to see Austin walking towards you. "Hi, Em," he says when he reaches you. "I see you found my note. Thanks for coming -- sorry I'm a little late. I'm going to head into the lab, so join me there whenever you're ready." True to his word, he enters the lab, closing the door behind him.
  
  You find yourself doing a double-take as the door shuts. Was Austin wearing a mask?
  
  > go east
  [first opening the lab door]
  It seems to be locked.
  
  > unlock door
  That's what the card reader is for.
  
  > put the card in the reader
  The green light glows, and there is a click from inside the lab door.
  
  > Go east
  [first opening the lab door]
  
  You are in Mom and Dad's lab. As usual, the majority of the equipment in this enormous space is more or less a mystery to you. Also here are a few tables and terminals; a ring of windows near the ceiling looks out on the distant stars. Doors lead south into the storage room and west into the hallway.
  
  The hallway door is open.
  
  The storage room door is open.
  
  You can also see Austin here.
  
  Your brother has always been a bit of a fashion victim, but what he's wearing right now hits a new level on the sartorial freak-o-meter. It's a skintight grey body stocking, flecked with black and decorated with small orange or yellow streaks here and there. The whole thing snugly covers his modest frame, and a combination cowl and mask comes up from the back to conceal his hair and eyes.
  
  "Hey," says Austin. "Thanks again for coming. Listen Emily, you're not going to believe what I've been uncovering here. But before I tell you anything more, go into the storage room and put on that suit you're holding. I'll be waiting for you here."
  
  Please select a reply:
  
  1) "Okay."
  2) "I'm supposed to take fashion advice from somebody dressed like that?"
  3) "Hey, what's with the orders? You're not the boss of me!"
  4) "Austin, stop being so high-handed and just tell me what's going on."
  
  > 2
  Austin laughs. "Okay, okay," he says, "I know this must look a little bizarre, considering you don't really know the context. But please, just trust me. It won't make sense until you're wearing yours too."
  
  > look at Austin
  Austin was never one to conform to the whims of fashion, but right now he's dressed much more strangely than you've ever seen him. He's wearing a grey jumpsuit, speckled with black and shot through with streaks of yellow and orange. The outfit seems to include a cowl and mask, which covers Austin's brown eyes.
  
  > go south
  If Mom had her way, the storage room would be a neatly organized gallery of supplies, spare parts, and backup media, all efficiently arranged on the room's many metal shelving units. However, with Dad using the lab, that's not likely to happen. Oh sure, everything is on the shelves, but finding something could take the better part of a day. A door leads back north to the lab.
  
  The storage room door is open.
  
  You can also see a chair here.
  
  > wear suit
  [first removing the sweatshirt]
  You're not about to undress with the door open, even if the guy in the next room is only your brother.
  
  > close the door
  You close the storage room door.
  
  > wear the suit
  [first removing the sweatshirt]
  
  [first removing the sweat pants]
  
  [first removing the sneakers]
  
  You slip into the blue bodysuit. It's not a perfect fit, but it's better than you'd expected, skintight in some areas and only slightly looser in others. The feel is warm and comfortable, and the suit covers almost your entire body, even your hands and feet. When you pull the cowl and mask on, you feel a strange tingling sensation in your scalp.
  
  > Go north
  [first opening the storage room door]
  
  You are in Mom and Dad's lab. As usual, the majority of the equipment in this enormous space is more or less a mystery to you. Also here are a few tables and terminals; a ring of windows near the ceiling looks out on the distant stars. Doors lead south into the storage room and west into the hallway.
  
  The hallway door is closed.
  
  The storage room door is open.
  
  You can also see Austin here.
  
  "Oh good, you're wearing it," Austin says.
  
  He shows you a notebook he's been carrying. "I found this notebook, along with these stylish outfits, late last night. I was checking out all the ongoing experiments in hopes of... well, I don't know what I was hoping for. All I know is that nobody seems to know what happened to Mom and Dad, and nobody can even think of any reason why they would have disappeared. So I've been combing through the lab, trying to reconstruct what they were working on at the time it happened."
  
  He leans back against a towering piece of steel machinery, allowing himself to slide down it and sit on the floor. "They were working on a lot, Em, let me tell you -- most of it so far beyond my own scientific experience that it took me a long time to even grasp the point of each experiment. Dad's cryptic notation style didn't help much either. So last night, when I started checking out a piece of equipment that didn't seem to have any purpose at all, I figured it was just my own ignorance again, that I didn't know what the thing was. Then I stumbled on a tiny little latch, and the whole thing swung open. Em, it was hollow inside. And stuffed into that cavity were these suits, with this notebook."
  
  He opens the notebook and begins to read aloud:
  
  Earthsuit: provides
  * greatly enhanced strength
  * resistance to electric shock
  * invulnerability to impact (nearly)
  
  Must be Mom's notes, you think to yourself. Dad would've written something like "inv 2 imp (~)". Austin flips a few pages, then reads again.
  
  Skysuit: provides
  * flight
  * electrical discharges (blasts)
  * fog
  
  "The rest of the pages are filled with notes and diagrams that are way beyond my grasp. But near as I can figure, these are the suits those notes talk about. I'm wearing the earthsuit, and you're wearing the skysuit."
  
  Please select a reply:
  
  1) "I don't understand. What's this all about?"
  2) "Did they also make a monkeysuit? Maybe with 'greatly enhanced banana-eating ability'?"
  3) "I had to wear this goofy suit just to hear you recite from a notebook?"
  4) "But this is just so bizarre. You think Mom and Dad were planning to make us into some kind of superheroes?"
  
  > 4
  "Maybe not us," he says. "Your build is very similar to Mom's, and I'm not all that much bigger than Dad. Maybe they were planning to wear the suits themselves. I don't know. All I know is that mine definitely works, or at least the strength part does. Watch."
  
  Austin turns around to face the device he had been using as a backrest. It's some sort of steel tower, probably fifteen feet tall and two feet in diameter. He squats in front of it, embraces it, and smoothly unbends his knees, lifting the entire thing as if it were made of balsa wood.
  
  "This thing must weigh almost a ton," he says through gritted teeth, "but I can lift it like it was a piece of furniture. It's a little awkward to keep balanced, but I can do it." As if to prove the point, he bends his knees again until the tower is in its original resting place, then turns to face you.
  
  "Remember that tingling you felt when you put own the cowl? The suits respond to mental commands. I bet if you decided you wanted to fly up to the ceiling right now, you could. Why don't you try it?"
  
  > fly
  The moment you think it, the ground silently drops away beneath you, so fast and so smoothly that it almost feels as if a wire is pulling you up to the ceiling. But there is no wire, and only air beneath your feet. You have risen...
  
  You are hovering in the air, several stories above the lab floor. The beams and girders of the ceiling are so close you could touch them, and the windows display a magnificent view of the campus and ocean. Far below, Austin looks up at you from amid a sea of equipment. Good thing you're not afraid of heights.
  
  > touch the beams
  Sure enough, you can touch them. [Hey, I wouldn't lie to you.] In fact, as you rest your hand on one of the girders, you notice a small envelope taped to it.
  
  > get the envelope
  Taken.
  
  > eat beam
  (first taking the ceiling struts)
  They're hardly portable.
  
  > open the envelope
  You open the envelope, revealing a letter.
  
  > read the letter
  [first removing it from the envelope]
  
  The letter is written in your mother's handwriting:
  
  If you've found this letter, something is probably very wrong. I wish I could explain everything to you, but that will have to wait. If Nina hasn't contacted you already, bring this letter to her. If we're missing, she can give you information that might help the search parties. If our deaths have been confirmed, she will serve as the executor of our estate, and deliver documents we've prepared for that circumstance.
  
  Remember that we love you both, and are very proud of you. And believe that we never meant to put you in danger -- for that we are deeply sorry.
  
  Courage,
  
  Mom + Dad
  
  Nina -- to you, she's always been "Aunt Nina", though of course she isn't really your blood relative. She's Mom and Dad's oldest and closest friend, so it makes perfect sense that they'd let her in on their secrets. But if she has information, why isn't she using it? And why hasn't she told you or Austin about any of this?