text: [Themes: Superhero, female protagonist]
  
  > Look around
  From where you stand, paths lead east, west, and south.
  
  Emily is here, watching you.
  
  Directly opposite the southern corridor, a tall cylinder interrupts the north wall. The tube runs floor to ceiling, with an opening in the front, a foot or two taller than you are.
  
  > Go east
  Emily follows you.
  
  This is a short corridor, leading west to the T junction and dead-ending in a blank wall to the east. Light in these corridors is ambient, radiating evenly from the walls, floor, and ceiling.
  
  Emily is nearby, waiting for you to do something interesting.
  
  An archway leads south into shadow.
  
  > Go south
  Emily follows you.
  
  This is a huge room, thousands of square feet, with its ceiling high enough to be invisible in the darkness -- in other words, a room very much like your parents' lab back home, and pain pierces you at the thought. However, where your parents' lab is occupied by clutter and machinery, this room is rather bare, except for the large device in the center. At least, you suppose it's bare, but the only light in here is what leaks through the archway leading north; shadows rule everywhere else.
  
  Emily stands a few feet away from you, looking stricken for a moment, then composing herself.
  
  A sizable machine dominates the room, two stories tall and covered in a nest of pipes. It has the unmistakable appearance of a vehicle. You tell Emily so, and she just nods and says, "Whatever you say, Austin," in that way she has.
  
  > look at the vehicle
  The vehicle is large and sleek, roughly rectangular in shape but tapering a bit at one end. Its entire surface is covered in a mazy tangle of pipes. Pipes wind around each other and down every side and edge, some terminating in a flare at the ground and others opening dark holes at the ship's untapered end. The whole thing looks a bit like an unfortunate collision between a shoebox and a French horn. No entrance is apparent anywhere.
  
  > examine the pipes
  Based on their configuration, you surmise that these pipes must have something to do with propulsion and stabilization of the craft.
  
  > enter the pipes
  Unless you manage to acquire a shrinking power, the pipes are too small to enter.
  
  > talk to Emily
  You've said all you can think of to say to Emily for the moment.
  
  > go to the north
  Emily follows you.
  
  This is a short corridor, leading west to the T junction and dead-ending in a blank wall to the east. Light in these corridors is ambient, radiating evenly from the walls, floor, and ceiling.
  
  Emily is here, watching you.
  
  An archway leads south into shadow.
  
  > go west
  Emily follows you.
  
  From where you stand, paths lead east, west, and south.
  
  Emily is nearby, waiting for you to do something interesting.
  
  Directly opposite the southern corridor, a tall cylinder interrupts the north wall. The tube runs floor to ceiling, with an opening in the front, a foot or two taller than you are.
  
  > go west
  Emily follows you.
  
  This is a short corridor, leading east to the T junction and dead-ending in a blank wall to the west. Light in these corridors is ambient, radiating evenly from the walls, floor, and ceiling.
  
  Emily leans against the wall here.
  
  A tall archway provides an exit to the south.
  
  > go to the south
  Before you break the plane of the archway, you look where you're going, and what you see stops you cold. The room beyond the archway is home to rank upon rank of security robots. There must be hundreds of them, standing alertly in thick regiments. The robots have clearly noticed you -- their bodies swivel to follow your every movement, but they do not advance. Down one of the aisles formed by the regiments, far at the back of the room, the lights of a large machine march in perfect rhythm.
  
  > look at the machine
  The machine is at the back of a big room, so you can't make out much -- mostly just that it's large and festooned with flashing lights. The whole thing is maybe the size of a concession stand, with yellow sliding doors on its front, flanked by black walls that curve smoothly away. Given its placement and its shape, you suspect that it serves the purpose of creating the security robots, and perhaps controlling them as well.
  
  > Punch machine
  The large machine is too far away.
  
  > go south
  "Austin!" shouts Emily. "What's the matter with you? You saw how tough it was to fight off those robots in a narrow corridor -- stepping into that room would be suicide!"
  
  Please select a reply:
  
  1) "Oh, right. Good point."
  2) "I can take 'em! I've got SUPER-POWERS!"
  3) "But how do we know they'll attack?"
  
  > 2
  Select an option or 0 to say nothing >> 2
  
  "Super-powers maybe, but you're not invincible, dummy. Those robots would massacre you, and I'd like you around for a while longer."
  
  > Go south
  Emily just says, "Think again, Austin."
  
  > Blast machine
  You look at the machine. It seems so far away, but the robots prevent you from getting any closer. If you're going to blast it, you'll have to do it from here.
  
  You thrust your hand toward it, willing the skysuit to do its lightning bolt thing. There's a tiny tingle, then a little more, but no lightning. Dammit. Just too far away. You drop your hand.
  
  No! You've come through an incredible amount of craziness to find your parents, and here you are, and you are not going to be stopped by this! You thrust your hand out again, and this time you keep your arm extended, feeling yourself starting to sweat within the skysuit.
  
  "My God, of course!" says Austin. "You're holding the charge, aren't you? But Emily, be careful! I think your suit's insulation should protect you, but don't push it too far! What you're doing could be dangerous!"
  
  Suddenly, with a crackle and a bright flash of light, arcs of electricity are dancing between your fingers and the floor near the machine. They're still a few yards away from the big device, but they begin to creep closer... closer...
  I beg your pardon?
  
  > Continue
  You can't bear to let the charge build any further, and you drop your arm, steeling your resolve to start over. The electrical arcs vanish, and you can breathe again. So you take a deep breath, close your eyes, and extend your arm.
  
  "Careful, Em," says Austin.
  
  Suddenly, with a crackle and a bright flash of light, arcs of electricity are dancing between your fingers and the floor near the machine. They're still a few yards away from the big device, but they begin to creep closer... closer...
  
  > fly
  You can't bear to let the charge build any further, and you drop your arm. The electrical arcs vanish, and you can breathe again.
  
  The ceiling is low enough that all you could do is hover a foot or so above the ground, so you don't bother.
  
  > Blast machine
  So you take a deep breath, close your eyes, and extend your arm.
  
  "Careful, Em," says Austin.
  
  Suddenly, with a crackle and a bright flash of light, arcs of electricity are dancing between your fingers and the floor near the machine. They're still a few yards away from the big device, but they begin to creep closer... closer...
  
  > Wait
  You wait, letting the charge build, and soon the air swims with acrid ozone. Your tongue feels like it's been coated in copper, and your breath comes in quick gasps. The electrical arcs brighten, inching ever closer to the machine, until they're just a few feet away from making contact.
  
  > wait for a while
  You can barely keep your arm straight as your muscles begin spasming of their own accord. The buzz of the electricity drones relentlessly in your ears, and through the red mist that's rapidly obscuring your vision, you can see that your electrical charge is just inches away from the huge machine.
  
  Distantly, you can hear Austin shouting encouragement. "You're almost there, Emily! If you can just hang on a few seconds more, you'll get it!"
  
  > Wait
  ZZZORK!
  KA-BOOM!
  
  Your blast reaches the machine, which explodes in a gratifying shower of sparks, like a special effect on the old Star Trek. I did this amazingly hard thing, and the image that comes to my mind is of Star Trek? These are your last thoughts as you slip out of consciousness.
  
  [now controlling Austin]
  
  This is a short corridor, leading east to the T junction and dead-ending in a blank wall to the west. Light in these corridors is ambient, radiating evenly from the walls, floor, and ceiling.
  
  A tall archway provides an exit to the south.
  
  The bright current flowing from Emily's fingertips vanishes, and she crumples to the floor.
  
  "Emily!" you cry, rushing to her. She doesn't respond. You reach down to pick her up -- she feels light as a sheet of paper in your earthsuited arms. Her head lolls, and then her eyelids begin to twitch.
  
  "All that electroshock, and I'm still in a rotten mood," she says, opening her eyes and smiling weakly up at you. You release the breath you didn't know you were holding, and lower her back down to the ground, steadying her until she can stand up on her own. She looks tired, but none the worse for wear after her ordeal.
  
  The same can't be said for the distant machine, its lights extinguished and smoke pouring from between its doors. Every robot in the room seems to have been affected by the machine's destruction -- they all slump slightly forward in the same inactive, defeated pose.
  
  > Go south
  Emily follows you.
  
  The lights are still ambient and sourceless but much brighter in this room, a cavernous space housing hundreds of security robots. The sound and vibration you felt in other rooms of the fortress is quite a bit stronger here, so much so that you can't hear or feel your own footsteps. At the south end of the room, a ruined robot controller sends plumes of noisome black smoke up to the high ceiling. A tall archway leads north.
  
  Emily is here, watching you.
  
  > look at the controller
  This machine is about the size of a concession stand, with yellow double-doors in the front and black polymer walls that curve smoothly away. It is structurally intact, more or less, but it is obviously quite defunct. Its lights have gone out, and black smoke seeps from between its doors. Now that you're closer to it, you can see that the machine isn't just resting on the ground, but instead rises up from it, almost as if it were a part of the floor.
  
  > open doors
  You step up to the doors, prying your fingers into the seam between them. With muscles made mighty by the power of the earthsuit, you pull, and the doors slide apart with an earsplitting SKREEEK! of protest, releasing a cloud of evil-smelling black smoke directly into your face. By the time your coughing fit ends, the smoke has dissipated, and you can see a small, dim space beyond the open doors.
  
  > enter the controller
  Emily follows you.
  
  Here in the guts of the former robot controller, there's barely room for two people to stand up, and even then, they have to be hunched over. Disappointingly, the walls are just more reflective polymer, betraying no information about the inner workings of the device. In fact, the only complicated-looking thing in here at all is the floor, which is a small metropolis of gleaming, interlocking metal pieces, with handle-like protrusions rising prominently from each edge. It's hard to find anywhere to put your feet where you won't be crushing something. The noise and vibration you felt in the outer room are even stronger in here. You can exit through the aperture made by the wrenched-open doors.
  
  Emily is alongside you, resplendent in blue and white.
  
  > Smash floor
  THOOM! You flatten some of the gears and blocks with a potent stomp, but the floor remains in place.
  
  > pull protrusions
  These cramped quarters make it difficult for you to find a place to stand where you can pull the floor up. The fact that Emily is crammed in here with you makes it impossible.
  
  > ask Emily,  to go outside
  "Okay, but just this once, because it is way too cramped in here." She floats serenely out.
  
  > pull the protrusions
  With one knee bent and your other foot resting almost all the way outside the chamber, you lean forward, gripping the handles at the furthest edge from the door. You brace yourself, and strain against the floor, willing it upward with every ounce of power in your tired muscles. At first, the floor seems immobile and your effort hopeless, but then you hear the sounds of metal pieces grinding against each other, and you feel the seam begin to give. There is a tearing, then another, and suddenly, an enormously satisfying KKKKRRRKK! as thousands of tiny clockwork pieces smash together and the floor peels backwards like a banana skin, folding into an inviting carpet in front of the robot controller.
  
  The lights are still ambient and sourceless but much brighter in this room, a cavernous space housing hundreds of security robots. The sound and vibration you felt in other rooms of the fortress is quite a bit stronger here, so much so that you can't hear or feel your own footsteps. At the south end of the room is the robot fabricator, whose former floor is now folded in front of it like a welcome mat. A tall archway leads north.
  
  Emily leans against the wall here.
  
  > enter
  Emily follows you.
  
  Here in the guts of the former robot controller, there's barely room for two people to stand up, and even then, they have to be hunched over. Disappointingly, the walls are just more reflective polymer, betraying no information about the inner workings of the device. You're balancing precariously on a thin metal rafter joist, all that's left of the floor you ripped away. Loud, constant machine noise comes from below, where you can see small, blocky robots milling about purposefully, on a floor that's at least five stories down from here. As well as the obvious way down, you can also exit through the aperture made by the wrenched-open doors.
  
  Emily hovers above the hole you've made in the floor.