text: [Themes: Science Fiction, space opera]
  
  > look around
  Automatons scurry to and fro in the complex of interconnected machinery, which churns and whirls across the vast convex surface of the Sphere.
  
  > examine the imager
  The device looks like a small, slightly-curved metal band, featureless and smooth on the outside.
  
  then explodes outward, and a star cruiser glides out of the breach as atmosphere and equipment vents out into space. The Sphere's central control system automatically closes the breach with a force field. Hugor's hijacked star cruiser disappears from light-based sight as it engages its photon engines.
  Hugor is far too precious to lose. You must find him and stop him
  from destroying himself!
  
  > Go outside
  You enter the star cruiser's control pod and launch out through the Sphere's space port in pursuit of your lost creation, your lost child.
  
  The stars evaporate in dim streaks as you leave light behind.
  The interior of the control pod of your ship is a spherical room with four molded chairs facing the viewscreen that covers the enitre diameter of the wall. The viewscreen remains locked onto Hugor's cruiser.
  
  > look at the viewscreen
  The sheet of transparent aluminum wraps all around the diameter of the circular room, displaying a projection of the stolen star cruiser rendered by calculations based on photon emissions. A narrow strip below the screen displays panels to activate and control the targeting system, navigation system, and photon engines.
  
  > look at the panels
  The sheet of transparent aluminum wraps all around the diameter of the circular room, displaying a projection of the stolen star cruiser rendered by calculations based on photon emissions. A narrow strip below the screen displays panels to activate and control the targeting system, navigation system, and photon engines.
  
  Hugor's vessel abruptly changes course and drops out of photon velocity. Your ship's computer immediately calculates Hugor's exit vector and makes corresponding course adjustments before entering sublight speed, and the stars snap into sharp focus on your viewport. But the stars are all you see as the computer wildly scans the
  sector, searching for the renegade ship.
  
  > look at the targeting system
  The sheet of transparent aluminum wraps all around the diameter of the circular room, displaying a field of stars. A narrow strip below the screen displays panels to activate and control the targeting system, navigation system, and photon engines.
  
  > look at the navigation
  The sheet of transparent aluminum wraps all around the diameter of the circular room, displaying a field of stars. A narrow strip below the screen displays panels to activate and control the targeting system, navigation system, and photon engines.
  
  Your shipboard sensors detect spatial distortion and photon displacement that was not present before. Investigating, you watch a swirling vortex of light energy expand as Hugor's star cruiser, drifting near the field of distortion, accelerates gently away from it and then begins to turn toward it in a long arc.
  Incredible. He should not have been able to generate such a large field for a long time. You cannot allow him to escape through it, or you may lose him forever.
  
  > Target hugor
  Your targeting system can't lock on to Hugor's vessel due to interference from the vortex, but you fire off a shot at the general area anyways, just as Hugor brings his ship around to enter the swirling light. The beam misses and is absorbed into the energy field. The vortex swells and wavers, and Hugor's ship tumbles away from it, turning end-over-end.
  The vortex shrinks and stabilizes, and then opens wide again as Hugor regains control of his cruiser, once again turning to enter the field of light.
  
  > Target vortex
  Your computer refuses to target the vortex directly due to the energy field's emissions, but you unleash a laser volley, the laser turret firing thousands of times in the half-second. On your viewport, the vortex absorbs the beam and warps chaotically, bursting into a nebula of sparks.
  Turning aside from the blast, Hugor's ship halts. As your star
  cruiser continues on an intercept course at its top non-photon speed, a swirling nimbus begins to gather in front of Hugor's cruiser. The nimbus expands into another vortex, and Hugor promptly accelerates into it just as you approach from behind, disappearing into the light. You are just seconds away from the light field, but you know that it's going to snap closed in the heartbeat.
  
  > enter the vortex
  You must do so. But you can't simply fly into the energy field at sublight velocity. Now that the origin of the dimensional field has gone on to the other side, the gateway is unstable and will collapse immanently, destroying your craft if you aren't moving faster than the photon warp.
  
  > examine the photon controls
  You haven't encountered any "photon controls". (If you're sure you need to refer to that, try putting it another way.)
  
  > turn on the photon
  There is only one thing you can do. Responding to your thought faster than you can twitch a limb, your computer sets a course through the center of the vortex and engages the four photon engines for a microsecond burst.
  You are elsewhere. Your sensors show no sign that the vortex ever existed. The viewport shows a solar system encircling an angry red sun. Hugor's craft is barely within scanning range, in orbit of the nearest planet. Even with the computer's precision, you far overshot the exit point of the portal, traveling above light speed. You bear down on the planet at top sublight speed.
  
  A cloud of debris encircles a dark terrestrial planet.
  The interior of the control pod of your ship is a spherical room with four molded chairs facing the viewscreen that covers the enitre diameter of the wall. The viewscreen shows Hugor's cruiser arc down and around the dark planet on a landing vector.
  
  > Down
  You descend into the atmosphere, following Hugor's vessel as it makes directly for the strange bulge, which resolves in your viewscreen into a misshapen artificial dome of some kind. As the star cruiser approaches, a panel opens on the surface of the dome, and Hugor decelerates directly into the maw.
  
  As the panel closes behind Hugor's cruiser, your ship lurches, the defensive system taking evasive maneuverings. Two turrets have risen from beneath ground level on either side of the dome to spit fiery fury at you, while assorted artillery outside the dome and smaller guns along its surface shoot at you with a variety of energy weapons. The defense system works tirelessly to evade, but a few stray beams manage to take out your photon engines. You return fire with your lasers, destroying one of the turrets and decimating the ground machines. Suddenly, the viewscreen flickers out along with the control strip
  and every source of light ,leaving you in total darkness. You feel yourself falling. Two tense heartbeats pass, and then the pod lights up again dimly. You initiate the eject sequence, and the ship encases your body in a close-fitting, rigid suit of alloy plates. The pod opens, and you fall, spreading your hands to create a force field just before impact.
  
  metal and organic offal, strewn around in haphazard heaps. The murky atmosphere obscures the sky in an acrid haze. Smoldering nuggets of debris rain down slowly but constantly.
  With the exception of the craters, the land is blandly level and featureless in all directions -- except in the direction facing the planet's south pole, where an asymmetrical black dome blots out the horizon.
  
  > Go south
  You sprint toward the malignant edifice, your shock suit enhancing your strength as you bound lightly over the barren terrain. As you draw near, the remaining ground turret follows your movement, and you proceed warily, activating your suit's force-shield. But the turret is content to track you as you walk through the mangled remains of the machines that you obliterated during your hurried arrival. Unhindered, you walk straight up to the side of the dome, and a portion of the wall dematerializes, leaving an uneven opening.
  You enter without hesitation, and the wall rematerializes on your heels. You see a dark silhoutte standing before you.
  
  "Remember me, World Builder?"
  
  An opaque black expanse covers everything, proclaiming itself to be a whole world, an entire universe. A multitude of machines and cyborgs lurk about, silhouetted against the haphazard red light that unevenly illuminates broken terrain.
  A hulking robotic behemoth stands before you.
  
  > talk to the behemoth
  "Your pointless war has nothing to do with my son, Minfor. Release
  him now, and I may yet leave you alone."
  The expressionless head swivels, and the lone yellow eye flashes brighter and then dimmer. "You have no authority here, World Builder," the machine hisses mechanically. "Hugor came to me freely. He is mine."
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying the imager.
  
  > talk to the behemoth
  "Do not feign innocence, Deceiver. I know that something touched my son when I had imparted my consciousness to him -- lied to him, no doubt, confused him. Told him how to use his ability. Lead him to this prison. No, Minfor, it is not Hugor who initiated this rebellion. I will have my vengeance."
  A popping cackle. "You did not suppose that you were the only one knowing the secrets of sub-dimensional transmission and projected consciousness, did you, World Builder? But I can't claim credit for Hugor's actions, as you well know. You said that Hugor bears your consciousness. If I had the power to control conscious beings, would I not have taken you?"
  
  > look at the behemoth
  The rigid, hulking figure before you defies sense and logic in the way the many plates, cylinders, and connecting tubes are assymetrically positioned. The main part of the "body" is a large, roughly box-shaped segment, upon one side of which sits a cylindrical "head" with a single oval optic, glowing yellow.
  
  Minfor's incongrouous limbs and components raise themselves higher,
  and he looms over you. "Unless that is exactly what I did. It seems Hugor was not the only one whom I lead to this prison. Like son, like father. All along, you thought you were acting of your own free choice. But what if I had always been communicating with your thoughts? What if I gave you the idea to create a being capable of opening doors to other dimensions, just so I could eventually conquer all worlds, altering reality according to my will? And now I have both the portal-maker and the mind that conceived him."
  
  > talk to the behemoth
  "What you say is false, and I can prove it," you state calmly.
  The cylindrical head extends out from the boxy body and bends down
  into your face. "How?"
  
  > Continue
  "Because I can freely choose to allow you to enslave me and still see my vengeance in the end!" you declare.
  The yellow light on the head blinks, and the cylinder swivels.
  "You can do whatever you want to me, on the condition of Hugor's freedom." You square your shoulders and clasp your gauntleted hands together, steepling your thumbs.
  Minfor retracts to its previous height and regards you curiously. A long moment passes. "Agreed." As soon as the word is grated, you see movement out of the corner of your eye, and Hugor is tossed at your feet, beaten and smoldering. A grotesque metallic creature detaches from the right side of his disfigured face and scuttles across the floor to crawl up Minfor, where it disappears somewhere inside the robot's asymmetric mass of components.
  
  > talk to Hugor
  "Be strong, son," you tell him. He looks up at you weakly, his expression numb.
  
  > look at Hugor
  The right side of his face and parts of his body, including his entire right hand, are scorched to the alloy skeleton, marring his human countenance. The imager has gone dark above his brow.
  
  "Time now!" Minfor hisses as the opening in the wall of the dome reappears. It bends over to wrap a tentacle around Hugor, roughly throwing him out the opening. From outside, Hugor meets your eyes for a brief moment, and then hangs his head low before the portion of the wall rematerializes.
  
  > go outside
  Leaving would spoil your plan.
  
  Something strikes you down from behind. The next thing you know, you are being beaten by a group of cyborgs. They enthusiastically deliver blow after blow. They smash your kneecaps and rake your body with metallic claws, lapping your blood like dogs. As you are tossed around, you occassionally catch a glimpse of Minfor looming behind the cyborgs, watching impassively.
  
  > Attack minfor
  With your nano augmentation and the field-generating capabilities of your emergency shock suit, you are far from defenseless. But here, you are on enemy territory, and your adversary has access to firepower and backup. Best to find another way out of this.
  
  The beating ceases as robots break the cyborgs up. Two androids grab you and unceremoniously constrain you to some bent and narrow surface, leaving you hanging in an unnatural position. The light from Minfor's eye blinks in your face. Then the torture begins.
  
  > talk to Minfor
  Nothing remains to be said.
  
  Laser drills bite into your skull and the back of your mouth.
  
  > wait for a while
  Time passes...
  
  Minfor places a spiny robotic creature onto your forehead. "The question as to whether or not you act under my compulsion is moot now, for this will allow me to control you quite crudely and efficiently." The spines shoot into your skull, piercing your brain. You can feel the thing rifle through your conscious thoughts and memories.
  
  Before your eyes appears a vision of Minfor, dark and terrible, shrouded in raging flame. Your consciousness is consumed by terror, and you feel an impulse to beg for mercy. But some rational remnant of your mind cannot accept, and your mouth remains closed.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  Your consciousness is plunged into pure pain, and agony because the only reality.
  
  The pain diminishes slightly, and your ears discern hollow, lifeless words. "The good thing about your projected consciousness is that I don't have to worry about killing you prematurely, since I can simply gather your nanotides and continue my experiments. Let us see if death has any interesting effects."
  You are enveloped in more pain -- a clearly physical pain. All over your body, you feel tiny creatures burrow into your flesh, consuming your organs.
  
  *** YOU HAVE DIED ***