text: [Themes: Humor, aliens, humor, teenagers, science fiction]
  
  > look around
  A cool, damp road beneath the mountain. Only a couple of the lights here work, and their dim yellow glow reflects off the slick concrete walls. Tons of rocks block the road to the southwest. To the northeast, you can see blue and red lights flashing in the darkness. You can see a heavy steel grate set into the wall here.
  
  Renee Finch is lying flat on her back, recovering.
  
  Mary Jane Minsky is sitting with her knees against her forehead, looking miserable.
  
  > talk to Mary Jane
  Mary Jane looks up at you, her eyes ringed with red. "I can't believe I just ran off and left Jenny back at the fair. What if those
  things got her?" She puts her face in her hands and weeps.
  
  > go to the northeast
  A police car has skidded and crashed into the side of the tunnel here, its lights filling the surrounding blackness with harsh flashes of red and blue. You can see the dimly-lit tunnel continuing to the southwest. Northeast and further in is nothing but pitch darkness.
  
  > Go northeast
  Jeepers, there could be anything down there! Wandering off into the darkness is just how they got Jimmy.
  
  > examine Car
  It looks like the driver lost control of the vehicle. The front end is completely smashed, but you can probably still get the car open if you want to. About all you can make out inside is a vaguely human shape slumped over the wheel.
  
  > open Car
  You grab the handle and pull as hard as you can. At first it seems to be jammed, but with a little effort and a few terribly unladylike grunts that you're glad nobody heard, you manage to swing it open. Flopped across the steering wheel like a boneless goose is the body of Buck Wilcox. That is...most of it. His brain is gone. It's
  been taken! No...guzzled!!
  
  > examine Wilcox
  Even Officer Wilcox didn't deserve to die like this! The one consolation is that his brain appears to have been pulled out through his ear before the car hit the wall, so at least he didn't
  suffer. He's been splattered by that greenish-yellow goo the Brain Guzzlers leave everywhere, and you spot a few flecks of something solid in it. On closer inspection, they appear to be fragments of eggshell.
  
  > go to the south-west
  A cool, damp road beneath the mountain. Only a couple of the lights here work, and their dim yellow glow reflects off the slick concrete walls. Tons of rocks block the road to the southwest. To the northeast, you can see blue and red lights flashing in the darkness. You can see a heavy steel grate set into the wall here.
  
  Renee Finch is back on her feet, sweaty but more-or-less recovered. She's examining the grate.
  
  Mary Jane Minsky is sitting with her knees against her forehead, looking miserable.
  
  > go southwest
  All those darn rocks are going to keep you from going out that way!
  
  > look at the grate
  The grate is covering the entrance to some kind of tunnel. Tiny engraved letters read  "Minsystems Labs Exhaust Vent C. No sneaking in through."
  
  > take grate
  You grunt and strain, but it's really in there! It would probably take at least three people working together to pull it out.
  
  > talk to Renee
  "Hey, Bonnie. I think we can get this grate off if we all pull together. Give me a hand, huh?"
  
  1) "Let me look around a little more first."
  2) "Sure! Let's do it!"
  
  > 2
  ["Sure! Let's do it!"]
  
  "Great! Okay, on three. One. Two. THREE!" You and Renee pull on the grate as hard as you can, but it doesn't come loose. "We could use a little help here, your highness," Renee hisses through
  clenched teeth. Mary Jane stands up, a little sullenly, and grips the bars. Between the three of you, the grate shifts a little, then pulls free in a shower of loose pebbles and concrete dust, sending you sprawling across the asphalt.
  
  "Great," Renee says, standing up. "Okay, Miss Sharp Elbows, since I had the honor of cushioning your fall, you can have the honor of going up first."
  
  1) Up you go!
  
  > 1
  [Up you go!]
  
  You scramble up the narrow vent. It's dark, hot, and a tight squeeze, but you can smell tobacco smoke from somewhere above you, and hear a scratchy Perry Como record playing, so at least they've got the basics of civilization up there. The others follow you in. After more climbing than you want to think about, you come to another grate in the side of the vent.
  
  1) Take a little peek through the grate.
  2) Push the grate open.
  
  > 1
  [Take a little peek through the grate.]
  
  Through the slats of the grate, you can see a pleasant modernist living room. The music is coming from a Hi-Fi set next to a comfortable-looking leather easy chair.
  
  Renee taps your foot. "Um, Bonnie? Why are we stopping?"
  
  1) "I think we're about to break into someone's house."
  2) Push the grate open.
  
  > 1
  ["I think we're about to break into someone's house."]
  
  "Yeah, well, unless you want to go back to just sitting on our butts being buried alive until we're starving, and then arm-wrestle me to find out which of us gets to eat Mary Jane, I think we're gonna have to live with it."
  
  1) Push the grate open.
  
  > 1
  [Push the grate open.]
  
  You push the grate out into the room and slide out into a comfortable-looking living room lined with bookshelves and lit by a collection of Tiffany lamps. Renee emerges next, and whistles. "Nice place. Especially for the inside of a mountain."
  
  Mary Jane slides out of the hole. "Thank you," she says politely, her voice cracking. "I p-picked the lamps myself. Now if you'll excuse me...I-think...I need some time alone. I'll just hop off t-to my room!"
  
  1) "Wait, Mary Jane, is this your house?"
  
  > 1
  ["Wait, Mary Jane, is this your house?"]
  
  She nods. "H-help yourself to anything in the ki--ki--kitchen!"
  
  With a wail, Mary Jane rushes off to the northwest, her eyes wet and her face white as a sheet. You see a brief glimpse of a room festooned with ruffles and pink before the door slams behind her.
  
  This circular room is ultramodern, like something from twenty years in the future. The sleek, smart-looking furniture is a symphony in avocado, orange, and mustard-yellow. There are exits set into the wooden paneling to the southwest and northwest, and another exit past a small entry foyer to the east, but the southwest and east exits are currently blocked by heavy-duty security shutters. A spiral staircase leads up, and a gaping exhaust vent leads down.
  
  Renee Finch is plopped in a comfortable-looking easy chair, leafing through a leather-bound book.
  
  > look at the book
  (the Canyonville High yearbook)
  (You turn to the Table of Contents)
  
  1) Foreword: Advice for Today's Teen-Ager
  2) Our Students: Pioneers at the Dawn of Tomorrow
  3) Our Community: A Heritage of Superbness
  4) (Close the yearbook)
  
  > 4
  [(Close the yearbook)]
  
  This circular room is ultramodern, like something from twenty years in the future. The sleek, smart-looking furniture is a symphony in avocado, orange, and mustard-yellow. There are exits set into the wooden paneling to the southwest and northwest, and another exit past a small entry foyer to the east, but the southwest and east exits are currently blocked by heavy-duty security shutters. A spiral staircase leads up, and a gaping exhaust vent leads down.
  
  Renee Finch is plopped in a comfortable-looking easy chair, leafing through a leather-bound book.
  
  > look athe leather-bound book
  A thick book with raised embossing and gold corners around a rather lewd-looking tableau of a well-endowed peasant girl. Goodness!
  
  > realeather-bound book
  Renee probaby wouldn't want you reading over her shoulder. It's not that important, anyway!
  
  > Go upward
  A dome covers the roof of the laboratory, converting this top floor into a vast circular workspace with a view of the surrounding mountains  beneath the oranges and pinks of an evening sky. In the center of the room is some sort of half-completed machine. Near it is a cluttered desk.
  
  Professor Barrabas Rudolph Minsky is up to his elbows in the machine, tinkering away.
  
  On the cluttered desk is an enormous coffee mug.
  
  > Examine mug
  A huge coffee mug brimming with steaming, fresh-roasted coffee. It's gigantic! You could probably keep fish in here without them feeling cramped in the least, although they might have other problems. "The Doctor Said I Had To Cut Down To One Cup A Day" is printed on the side, so maybe it started off as a gag gift.
  
  > talk to the Professor
  [Picture number 10 here.]
  
  "My word!" the professor says, looking up. "A survivor! So the townsfolk haven't been entirely wiped out after all. Mary Jane will be thrilled one of you made it. She's always been more at ease with the hoi polloi."
  
  1) "I'm not the only survivor."
  2) "Are you Mary Jane's father?"
  
  > 1
  ["I'm not the only survivor."]
  
  "Gee, Professor, I'm not the only one who made it past the Brain Guzzlers. There's me, Bonnie Noodleman--and my friend Renee--and Mary Jane is back, too, safe and sound!"
  
  The professor blinks. "Back? What do you mean?"
  
  "Well, wasn't she at the festival? As the Pine Nut Queen?"
  
  "Nonsense!" he scoffs. "I've devoted my life to the pursuit of science, as has my daughter. I've strictly forbidden her to waste her intellect on all this populist fiddle-faddle. Go ahead; check her room if you don't believe me."
  
  1) "Sure, she's in her room now..."
  
  > 1
  ["Sure, she's in her room now..."]
  
  "You see? Right where she should be." The professor peers at you. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm a very busy man. This Brain-Utilizing Brain-Unguzzler isn't going to finish inventing itself!"
  
  1) "What's that you're building?"
  2) "I have a question about the Brain Guzzlers."
  3) "I guess I won't bother you any more right now!"
  
  > 2
  ["I have a question about the Brain Guzzlers."]
  
  "Unfortunately, Miss Noodleman, I have more questions than answers myself. But I will endeavor to enlighten you in any way I can."
  
  1) "Where did these awful things come from?"
  2) "Why do they guzzle brains, anyway?"
  3) "Once we defeat them--what happens next?"
  
  > 1
  ["Where did these awful things come from?"]
  
  "Fascinating question! Our best guess, based on the approach vector of several unidentified flying objects detected over the past 24 hours, is that they originate somewhere in the vicinity of Pluto. Though of course it's theoretically possible that they came from elsewhere and simply passed Pluto on the way. As I said, there's much we don't know."
  
  1) "What's that you're building?"
  2) "I have a question about the Brain Guzzlers."
  3) "I guess I won't bother you any more right now!"
  
  > 2
  ["Why do they guzzle brains, anyway?"]
  
  "A scientific mystery! Perhaps it's some crude form of communication. Perhaps they seek to guzzle some vital chemical, found within our brains, and only incidentally guzzle the entire organ. Perhaps this is all some sort of intelligence test--they may, in truth, be as far above us as we are above common laboratory rats or the indolent Swede."
  
  1) "What's that you're building?"
  2) "I have a question about the Brain Guzzlers."
  3) "I guess I won't bother you any more right now!"
  
  > 3
  ["Once we defeat them--what happens next?"]
  
  "Difficult to say. Much of the planet is likely already unrecoverable. This impenetrable lab may act as an ark of technology and biological material, keeping us and our precious brains safely unguzzled until we may exit to rebuild the world in our own image. Or perhaps the military will succeed in driving the creatures off, and we'll simply have a great deal of mopping to do."
  
  1) "What's that you're building?"
  2) "I have a question about the Brain Guzzlers."
  3) "I guess I won't bother you any more right now!"
  
  > 1
  ["What's that you're building?"]
  
  "The Brain-Utilizing Brain-Unguzzler, or 'BUBU', also known as our planet's last, best hope for survival in the face of this Brain Guzzler onslaught."
  
  1) "And just how does this 'BUBU' thingamajig work?"
  2) "I have a question about the Brain Guzzlers."
  3) "I guess I won't bother you any more right now!"
  
  > 1
  ["And just how does this 'BUBU' thingamajig work?"]
  
  "Perspicacious question, Miss Noodleman. The BUBU, or 'Brain-Utilizing Brain-Unguzzler', is an atomically powered device which uses radiation waves to reverse the magnetic flux of any material which originates from outer space, essentially using the Brain Guzzlers' own biological energy against them. Of course, every child has done the simple experiment in which water is slowly heated until a frog is boiled alive without even thinking to hop out of the pan. Now imagine the frog and the pan were on opposite ends of a table, and yet by making folds in the fabric, we could bring them together without the frog needing to pass over the entire tablecloth. That's essentially the principle the BUBU uses, minus the frog, of course." He sighs. "Or rather, it's the principle that it would use if I had all the
  parts I needed."
  
  He wheels out a blackboard. "The components listed here are...the bulk of what's required. Feel free to take a look at it when we're done talking."
  
  1) "I have a question about the Brain Guzzlers."
  2) "I guess I won't bother you any more right now!"
  
  > 2
  ["I guess I won't bother you any more right now!"]
  
  "I appreciate that, young lady."
  
  A dome covers the roof of the laboratory, converting this top floor into a vast circular workspace with a view of the surrounding mountains  beneath the oranges and pinks of an evening sky. In the center of the room is some sort of half-completed machine. Near it is a cluttered desk, with a blackboard looming over it.
  
  Professor Barrabas Rudolph Minsky is up to his elbows in the machine, tinkering away.
  
  On the cluttered desk is an enormous coffee mug.
  
  > read the blackboard
  The blackboard is covered with chalk diagrams and chicken-scratch writing. One whole section of it is taken up with a checklist of components, reading as follows:
  
  Micro-Mini Computer
  Brain Guzzler DNA Sample
  Purified Fructonium
  20,000-Ton Impenetrable Steel Chassis
  Spork
  
  You carefully jot down the components on a sheet of loose-leaf paper. Now you can keep track of what you've got and what you need to find. It sure does feel swell to be neat and organized!
  
  "Excellent!" the Professor notes. "I suppose I'll have to risk opening the internal security shutters so you can search the house. Fortunately this facility remains completely impregnable from the outside, so it shouldn't be an issue."
  
  He fiddles with something or other, and you hear the sound of heavy shutters clattering open on the floor below.