text: [Themes: Science Fiction, family, teenage protagonist]
  
  > Go down
  This courtyard sits in the center of the C-shaped residential tower; a seemingly endless series of balconies rise around you on three sides, while the empty whiteness of the xylosphere ring is to the east. A sickly-looking garden of half-dead pufferpod trees wilts in the center. A sorting chute leads up to the apartments, including the one where you're supposed to be living.
  
  The pufferpod shrivels with a melacholy sputter.
  
  A security sphere rolls up from Ringway West.
  
  > go east
  This long circular hallway curves away to the northeast and southeast. Strips of subdued lighting along the walls glow a gentle blue, almost overwhelmed by the huge, dark room behind the windows to the east. Through the thick glass you can see the sealed xylosphere.
  
  To the west, the hall opens into a circular courtyard.
  
  A security sphere rolls up from Residential Courtyard.
  
  > SE,NE,E
  This long circular hallway curves away to the northwest and northeast. Strips of subdued lighting along the walls glow a gentle blue, almost overwhelmed by the huge, dark room behind the windows to the north. Through the thick glass you can see the sealed xylosphere.
  
  The open bloom shutter to the south leads to the Bolo Buy promenade.
  
  A security sphere rolls up from Ringway West.
  
  This long circular hallway curves away to the southwest and northwest. Strips of subdued lighting along the walls glow a gentle blue, almost overwhelmed by the huge, dark room behind the windows to the west. Through the thick glass you can see the sealed xylosphere.
  
  There are a pair of glass double doors to the east with the ObCorp logo stenciled on them.
  
  A security sphere rolls up from Ringway South.
  
  This room is packed with the complex computer tanks and engineering equipment ObCorp employees use when designing new environments. It's lit by the same dim blue strips as the hallway. A large environmental workstation dominates the room. You can go up from here via elevator chute, or west to the central ringway.
  
  The WorldScaper 7.0 Quickstart Guide rests on the workstation.
  
  > Go upward
  A comfortable lounge for the xyloformers to relax and observe their handiwork, overlooking the xylosphere floor far below. A dull gray orb is visible to the west, attached to the xylosphere ceiling. There's a trashed drink machine here, leaking. You can go down from here via elevator chute.
  
  > examine the orb
  A gray sphere about thirty feet across.
  
  > D,W,NW,N,N
  This room is packed with the complex computer tanks and engineering equipment ObCorp employees use when designing new environments. It's lit by the same dim blue strips as the hallway. A large environmental workstation dominates the room. You can go up from here via elevator chute, or west to the central ringway.
  
  The WorldScaper 7.0 Quickstart Guide rests on the workstation.
  
  This long circular hallway curves away to the southwest and northwest. Strips of subdued lighting along the walls glow a gentle blue, almost overwhelmed by the huge, dark room behind the windows to the west. Through the thick glass you can see the sealed xylosphere.
  
  There are a pair of glass double doors to the east with the ObCorp logo stenciled on them.
  
  This long circular hallway curves away to the southeast and southwest, while heavy security doors mark the entrance to the control tower to the north. Strips of subdued lighting along the walls glow a gentle blue, almost overwhelmed by the huge, dark room behind the windows to the south. Through the thick glass you can see the sealed xylosphere.
  
  The roots of the main control tower run through this room, piping commands around the station. Banks of monitors display surveillance images from around the station, and there's a large placard on the wall with a list of station rules. The Ringway is to the south and stairs lead further up into the tower. A dank, earthy stench comes from a darkened hallway to the north.
  
  A glistening trouble tank has been installed here. It contains a solar beam.
  
  This north-south hall runs between the control tower and the maintenance and engine wing. The walls are encrusted with nock barnacles which glisten in the light.
  
  > go north
  You're in a large parking hangar filled with rows of powered-down vehicles neatly parked in spaces marked with glowing guide moss. The Planet Roller is here, parked in the aisle. It's hard to make out much else in the low light, but there's a hall to the south and a smaller office to the east. Moist air is coming from the darkness to the north.
  
  You can see a Tunnel Roller (empty) here.
  
  > go to the east
  This small, sparse office contains an engine switchboard.
  
  You can see an engineer's calendar here.
  
  > read the calendar
  It's a bunch of tech notes from last year, back when they were still building the place, interspersed with personal stuff like "Laje B-Day" and "make appt @HYB".
  
  > take calendar
  It doesn't look like it's meant for kids. You'd better leave it where it is...unless, of course, you don't care about getting into trouble with the station.
  
  > look at the calendar
  The calendar is covered in pictures of male Xyloids in full bloom.
  You haven't seen very many of them, since they're grown in special gardens where kids aren't allowed, but you've looked up enough pictures to know that someone messed with the colors on them to make the flowers look brighter, and that's way more pollen than they're supposed to have. They must have added it for some reason as a prop. Looking at the pictures for too long makes you sort of uncomfortable in a weird way.
  
  > examine the switchboard
  Three switches, marked West, North, and East, are arranged in a triangle.
  
  > Go north
  The floor here is scuffed and slimy from the passage of maintenance equipment. Engine access tunnels are visible to the west, north and east. The north tunnel is blocked by a shimmering  wall of energy.
  
  > enter Roller
  (the Tunnel Roller)
  You plop down in the driver's seat and pull the door shut, creating an airtight seal. The driving controls don't seem too complicated, and after a little initial skidding in circles you manage to get them down pat, even if you do have a little trouble reaching the foot pedals. This thing even has a solar butt warmer to keep you from getting hungry while driving in the dark.
  
  Speaking of your butt, you just realized you were sitting on something. Upon picking it up, it turns out to be an operator's manual. You can read it if you need any help figuring out the rest of the controls.
  
  > read the manual
  The manual describes in detail the controls of the Obscorp "Little Buddy" Tunnel Roller. You can SWITCH ON or SWITCH OFF the headlights (although the light is inedible), SNAG something to deploy a powerful, specialized snagpoon, UNSNAG something to release the snagpoon, and HONK to sound  a high-decibel warning horn. The Tunnel Roller is airtight, all-terrain, nearly indestructible, and self-charging, so do what you want with it!
  
  > go outside
  You open the doors and slide out.
  
  > Go west
  This is a long, dark east-west tube. It's perfectly smooth and clean and there's nothing much here to distinguish it at all.
  
  > go west
  You are on the stationward side of a fifty-foot gap in the tunnel, where most of the structure has been sheared away, leaving what's left exposed to the open air. Below is a dizzying dropoff into a steep chasm, in which you can see twisted, ruined chunks of plating and other wreckage on the floor far below. The only part of the tunnel that's still complete is a thin support beam high overhead, running across the chasm. The tunnel continues east from here, and you can see across the gap that it also continues west, disappearing into the side of a towering cliff.