text: [Themes: Science Fiction, Espionage, Mystery, nonhuman protagonist, male protagonist]
  
  > Go downwards
  The lights flick on as you enter the cellar.
  
  The basement is lit by striplamps crisscrossed across the plastic ceiling, and is the only truly grubby room in the building. The floor is caked with dust and what even looks like soil; no doubt actually decomposing rubbish from various plants stored here over the years. The other clear thing about this room is that it's half the width it used to be - though the ceiling continues back there is a gleaming white wall in the way, in the centre of which is a large, forbidding door. It leads into the laboratory.
  
  Steps lead upward on one side.
  
  On one wall is the bubble thermostat.
  
  Amongst the piles of junk filling the cellar, something stands out as though glowing. It is a black chest.
  
  > Go upward
  The kitchen is largely uninteresting - a small functional room, a laboratory of life, with the various implements of cooking arranged around the walls. For all the advances in materials over the last thousand years; roasting, baking and boiling still work as before. Just with the addition of microwave generators and plasmacoil hobs.
  
  So against the northwest wall, is a sink; and in one corner a freezer hums quietly to itself.
  
  The floor is seamless bar a square of plexiplastic.
  
  > examine the thermostat
  You close the freezer.
  
  > D
  
  The lights flick on as you enter the cellar.
  
  The basement is lit by striplamps crisscrossed across the plastic ceiling, and is the only truly grubby room in the building. The floor is caked with dust and what even looks like soil; no doubt actually decomposing rubbish from various plants stored here over the years. The other clear thing about this room is that it's half the width it used to be - though the ceiling continues back there is a gleaming white wall in the way, in the centre of which is a large, forbidding door. It leads into the laboratory.
  
  Steps lead upward on one side.
  
  On one wall is the bubble thermostat.
  
  Amongst the piles of junk filling the cellar, something stands out as though glowing. It is a black chest.
  
  The thermostat gauge is pushed quite high.
  
  > examine the soil
  A thin layer of rubbish, brought in from outside.
  
  > examine the chest
  A solid metal chest, large enough to hold a ream of paper, with curved edges to frustrate hacksaws and hinges buried under a lip of moulded steel. It is held closed by a small lock at the front, which takes an ordinary key (rather than a fingerprint or a magnetic strip). On the lid is a label: "MRS. LAURA MACKENZIE." Not his then, strangely; even though this is a storage box for organic material.
  
  > search the junk
  You rummage around for something interesting, and unearth of all things, a long hairpin.
  
  > look at the lock
  (the black box)
  A solid metal chest, large enough to hold a ream of paper, with curved edges to frustrate hacksaws and hinges buried under a lip of moulded steel. It is held closed by a small lock at the front, which takes an ordinary key (rather than a fingerprint or a magnetic strip). On the lid is a label: "MRS. LAURA MACKENZIE." Not his then, strangely; even though this is a storage box for organic material.
  
  > open the lock with the hairpin
  (the black box with the hairpin)
  You slide your lockpick into the lock and begin to feel for the pins of the mechanism. The design suggests there are three; perhaps you get the first in place but your hand shakes a little too much and you cannot get the third. Irritated, you finally give up.
  
  > Go west
  The hallway of Mackenzie's home is bare but homely, one wall hung with a photograph of some Earth lake surrounded by mountains, and an antiquated-looking coat-stand by the porch door to the west. Doorways lead off in two other directions; the east appears to be a kitchen and the north is a living room. There is no upstairs in the house; the entire upper metre or so is filled solid with various forms of algae, to grow oxygen, regulate temperature and recycle waste.
  
  In one corner is a stubby yucca tree.
  
  > go to the west
  The porch is just a short space of corridor, with two large fans built into the walls behind a white-mesh grille. The air is a little better regulated here, and smells fresh and tart, straight from an algae-tank. There is little else here - a rack for shoes and a hook for coats. Either end of this space are the large doors that seal inside from outside, they are east and west respectively.
  
  On the shoe rack are a pair of lady's shoes.
  
  > Go outside
  You open the door effortlessly with a loud hissing sound, and go through.
  
  Your car is parked at a slight angle at the end of the long drive, its nose almost poking into a purple-leaved bush. The low sun makes the red dust glow like amber into the distance. Mackenzie's bubble is to the east, its door closed. The road leads right up to it, with no front garden.
  
  > examine the bush
  A line of bushes growing to about waist-height which border the track for about twenty metres from the house. They are unfamiliar to you, sprawling, with a purple tinge to the leaves.
  
  The door swings silently shut and the light on the card-reader returns to red.
  
  > take the leaves
  You pluck a leaf from the bush with a thick snap. In response the branch moves backwards, far more than just a recoil, curling up into itself. The movement seems to disrupt other branches, sparking a wave that travels down the hedgerow in an uncoordinated squirm of fauna. It is several minutes before it is still once more; by then the leaf in your hand has leaked a fine sap as far as your wrist.
  
  > go inside
  You slip the card into the lock and the light flicks over to green. Then you push open the door and step into the porch.
  
  The porch is just a short space of corridor, with two large fans built into the walls behind a white-mesh grille. The air is a little better regulated here, and smells fresh and tart, straight from an algae-tank. There is little else here - a rack for shoes and a hook for coats. Either end of this space are the large doors that seal inside from outside, they are east and west respectively.
  
  On the shoe rack are a pair of lady's shoes.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  a purple leaf
  a hairpin
  a cactus spine
  a plastic card
  a printed fax
  a brown envelope (which is open)
  a case file
  
  > Go east
  You open the door with a soft hiss, and go through into the hallway. The lights inside come on automatically.
  
  The hallway of Mackenzie's home is bare but homely, one wall hung with a photograph of some Earth lake surrounded by mountains, and an antiquated-looking coat-stand by the porch door to the west. Doorways lead off in two other directions; the east appears to be a kitchen and the north is a living room. There is no upstairs in the house; the entire upper metre or so is filled solid with various forms of algae, to grow oxygen, regulate temperature and recycle waste.
  
  In one corner is a stubby yucca tree.