text: [Themes: Science Fiction, Espionage]
  
  > look around
  This long, narrow chamber might better be called a corridor than a room. The north and south walls are lined with file drawers from floor to ceiling; there must be thousands of drawers. A door lies to the west; a small vent is over the door.
  Your boss Mr. Teeterwaller is here.
  
  Teeterwaller looks through a drawer, pulling a couple of files and looking them over, stuffing them into his briefcase.
  
  > open the drawers
  You pick a drawer at random and open it. The drawer is loaded with files; you choose one with a typewritten label reading "Microprocessor Transfer Study" and look through it.
  
  The rapid pace of transfers over the past five years has clearly strained several absorption factors and is not producing the benefits that accrued in prior stages. The original recipients bear partial responsibility through their dubious practices, but fundamentally we have simply transferred technology too rapidly. The schedule adjustments we have initiated should stabilize the market within two years and restore full profitability.
  
  Teeterwaller snatches the file. "This one looks important," he says as he stuffs the file into his briefcase.
  
  Teeterwaller looks through a drawer, pulling a couple of files and looking them over, stuffing them into his briefcase.
  
  > Keep going
  You pick a drawer at random and open it. The drawer is loaded with files; you choose one with a typewritten label reading "Embargo Schedule - Medical" and look through it.
  
  Agreements with Mercer & Co., Pfalk Laboratories, Seth and Gurney, Milnes renewed through FY 2015. All below listed substances are embargoed to all parties through contract expiration, pending timely receipt of annual suppression fees as negotiated.
  
  NN 373 AS1 (wide spectrum influenza antiviral)
  A901/902 PF (macular regenerative)
  X-6080114 (bacteriophage - BUT NOTE use as car wax approved for 1999, see Schedule - Automotive, Cleaning & Cosmetic)
  
  ...and a long list of similar entries follows.
  
  Teeterwaller snatches the file. "This one looks extremely interesting," he says as he stuffs the file into his briefcase.
  
  Teeterwaller looks through a drawer, pulling a couple of files and looking them over, stuffing them into his briefcase.
  
  > keep going
  You pick a drawer at random and open it. The drawer is loaded with files; you choose one with a typewritten label reading "MB-7" and look through it.
  
  This file contains numerous technical diagrams of a jet airliner, including everything from the passenger compartment floor plan to the parts list for the fan blades in the engine.
  
  Teeterwaller snatches the file. "This one looks curious," he says as he stuffs the file into his briefcase.
  
  Teeterwaller looks through a drawer, pulling a couple of files and looking them over, stuffing them into his briefcase.
  
  > Go west
  "We must come back here," Teeterwaller says, stuffing a few last files into his briefcase as he follows you out of the room. "There's much more I want to see here."
  
  The proportions of this passage, the workmanship of the marble
  floor, the wire-caged light fixtures all give this corridor an antique appearance. A large room lies to the northwest, and silvery doors lie to the east, west, and south; the door to the south is labeled "MAINTENANCE," and the door to the east is marked "RECORDS."
  
  > go northwest
  Mr. Teeterwaller comes with you.
  
  as they rise hundreds of feet to the glass panes of the ceiling.
  Lights from the towers above the surface twinkle like Christmas tree decorations through the glass. An elevator is to the west, and passages lead north and southeast.
  A fire hose hangs down from the ceiling, the end of the hose just reaching the floor.
  
  > Go west
  You'll have to open the elevator first.
  
  > go to the north
  Mr. Teeterwaller comes with you.
  
  This wide hallway is filled with dust and debris from a construction project. A foreman is looking at a blueprint, and several construction workers are demolishing parts of the hallway. The hallway opens to the south, and continues north past the contruction.
  
  > Go west
  You can't go that way.
  
  Mr. Teeterwaller starts telling you some office gossip, but stops, a little disappointed, when he realizes you don't know the people involved in the embarrassing parts.
  
  > go to the north
  The foreman waves you by. You carefully navigate through the construction debris, following the hallway as it turns a corner and continues west.
  
  Mr. Teeterwaller comes with you.
  
  This is the west end of a wide east-west hallway. A sliding metal door, labeled "Lab 7," leads north, and a white door, labeled "Observation Room," leads west.
  
  > put the red ithe d in the slot
  You slip the red ID card into the slot; it's a good fit. A soft beep emanates from the slot, and the metal door slides open.
  
  Teeterwaller looks through his pockets for something.
  
  > Go north
  Mr. Teeterwaller comes with you.
  
  This is a cavernous room, a hundred feet tall and twice as wide.
  Pieces of electronic equipment are scattered throughout the chamber.
  In the center of the room is a workbench, on which is a plastic stand; a pair of electrodes are connected to the stand, and the electrodes are connected with wires to an electronic device on a cart next to the workbench. Near the workbench is a silver crate, the size of a refrigerator sitting on its back.
  An air vent is visible in the center of the ceiling. A glass window
  in the south wall looks out into an observation room.
  A sliding metal door leads south.
  Sitting on the plastic stand is a black disk.
  
  The metal door slides closed.
  
  > examine the disk
  It's about the size of a half-dollar coin, and is made of a dull black material.
  
  > take the disk
  A siren sounds from a loudspeaker somewhere above you, and a voice echoes through the room: "Intruder alert, laboratory seven. Section black, commence procedure one one delta."
  
  Through the window in the south wall, you see several guards dressed in black jump-suits and black helmets rush into the observation room.
  They see you and start motioning to one another.
  
  Teeterwaller takes two steps backwards. "Uh, oh..."
  
  Taken.
  
  Guards run in and out of the observation room.
  
  > Examine crate
  The crate is made of a very shiny silver metal. It's about the size of a refrigerator sitting on its back.
  
  > Open crate
  There's no obvious way to open the crate. You can find no latches, buttons, catches, or other mechanisms, and there's not even a visible seam anywhere.
  
  > look at the device
  Which device do you mean, the portable hand-held scanner, or the electronic device?
  
  > look at electronic
  Which electronic do you mean, the equipment, or the electronic device?
  
  > examine the electronic device
  The device is about the same size and shape as a video recorder, but the case is unpainted metal and the only obvious controls are a dial and a red button.
  
  Teeterwaller looks through his pockets for something.
  
  > examine the dial
  The dial can be turned to settings numbered from 1 to 100. It's currently set to 5.
  
  Mr. Teeterwaller seems to be lost in thought.
  
  > press the red button
  A spark jumps across the electrodes. The disk glows faintly for a moment, then returns to normal.
  
  > turn the dial to 100
  Okay, it's now turned to 100.
  
  A siren sounds from a loudspeaker somewhere above you, and a voice echoes through the room: "Intruder alert, laboratory seven. Section black, commence procedure one one delta."
  
  Through the window in the south wall, you see several guards dressed in black jump-suits and black helmets rush into the observation room.
  They see you and start motioning to one another.
  
  Teeterwaller takes two steps backwards. "Uh, oh..."
  
  The guards make threatening gestures at you through the window.
  
  > attach the electrodes to the disk
  There's no obvious way to do that.
  
  Teeterwaller looks around purposefully.
  
  > examine the electrodes
  The electrodes are connected to the device on the cart, and the ends are attached to opposite sides of the stand.
  
  Mr. Teeterwaller seems to be lost in thought.
  
  > put the disk on the stand
  The black disk is already on the plastic stand!
  
  Teeterwaller looks around purposefully.
  
  > Examine crate
  The crate is made of a very shiny silver metal. It's about the size of a refrigerator sitting on its back.
  
  Mr. Teeterwaller seems to be lost in thought.
  
  > open it
  There's no obvious way to open the crate. You can find no latches, buttons, catches, or other mechanisms, and there's not even a visible seam anywhere.
  
  Mr. Teeterwaller starts telling you some office gossip, but stops, a little disappointed, when he realizes you don't know the people involved in the embarrassing parts.
  
  > knock on the crate
  I don't know how to knock the silver crate.
  
  Teeterwaller looks through his pockets for something.
  
  > turn the dial to 100
  Okay, it's now turned to 100.
  
  A siren sounds from a loudspeaker somewhere above you, and a voice echoes through the room: "Intruder alert, laboratory seven. Section black, commence procedure one one delta."
  
  Through the window in the south wall, you see several guards dressed in black jump-suits and black helmets rush into the observation room.
  They see you and start motioning to one another.
  
  Teeterwaller takes two steps backwards. "Uh, oh..."
  
  The guards in the observation room bang on the glass.
  
  > press the button
  (the red button)
  Darkness suddenly falls over the room as all of the lights go out; a second later, the electrodes blaze with a blinding flash of white light and make a loud pop like a balloon bursting. The spark fades, and the disk glows with an intense but ghostly blue light.
  
  You suddenly feel like you're tumbling sideways, and it feels like something is pulling your feet and your head in opposite directions. You reach out for something to hold, but find nothing in reach.
  
  Just as you think you're going to hit the ground, you realize that the floor is twenty feet away and getting further. You're falling, but somehow you're falling toward the ceiling. The room is spinning rapidly, and you see that Mr. Teeterwaller is falling alongside you, his eyes closed and his arms flailing wildly; beside him the brightly-glowing disk is serenly floating in mid-air.
  
  You keep falling upwards for several seconds, moving directly toward a large air vent on the ceiling. You draw closer and closer to the vent, and you brace yourself for impact. In a moment the vent is only a few feet away, but now you can see that you're not moving very quickly after all, and you easily maneuver yourself into the opening.
  
  Teeterwaller crashes into the ceiling just outside the vent, but you manage to grab his arm and help him through the opening.
  
  You find yourself in a large air duct. The disk floats up through the opening; its glow gradually fades, and as it does, you, Teeterwaller, and the disk settle to the floor of the duct. Gravity returns to normal.
  
  This aluminum air duct is just large enough to crawl through here,
  but splits into several smaller ducts to the west, none of which are large enough to permit further passage. The duct widens to the east. In the floor is a square opening, two feet on a side, whose cover has been swung out and down; a cavernous chamber below is visible through the opening.
  You see a black disk here.
  
  Through the opening, you see the door to the lab slide open, and dozens of guards rush into the lab, looking up at you from the floor far below.
  
  > get the disk
  Taken.
  
  Through the opening, you see the guards in the lab watching you.
  
  Mr. Teeterwaller looks around.
  
  > take the disk
  You already have the black disk!
  
  The guards in the lab rush around busily, several keeping a close watch on you.
  
  Mr. Teeterwaller mumbles something to himself.
  
  > Go east
  Mr. Teeterwaller comes with you.
  
  This low, narrow tunnel was probably never intended as a walkway;
  it's more like a ventilation shaft than a corridor. The tunnel becomes an aluminum duct to the west, and several small vents connect through the north and south walls. The passage opens into a larger area to the east.
  
  > go east
  Mr. Teeterwaller comes with you.
  
  Underground, in shaft
  Concrete walls line this cylindrical shaft surrounding the tower.
  The stairs end their descent here, about a story beneath the surface, but the shaft continues far below. A metal grating completely covers the shaft at the bottom of the stairs, providing a floor.
  A narrow opening in the wall of the shaft leads west.
  
  > Go upward
  Following the stairs around the tower, you cross through an opening in the grating and emerge into the night air.
  
  Mr. Teeterwaller comes with you.
  
  Landing, one story up
  This landing is about one story above the ground, on the east side
  of the tower. The stairs continue up and down.
  Several guards are watching you through the grating of the landing
  one level up.
  
  The guards watch you through the stairs.
  
  > look at the guards
  The guards are watching you through the grating of the stairs.
  
  The guards watch you through the stairs.
  
  Mr. Teeterwaller looks around.
  
  > Go up
  Mr. Teeterwaller comes with you.
  
  Landing, three stories up
  This landing is about three stories above the ground, on the east
  side of the tower. The stairs continue wrapping around the tower, allowing you to travel up or down.
  Several guards are watching you through the grating of the landings above and below.
  
  The guards watch you through the stairs.
  
  > Go up
  The stairs only make half a turn around the tower before you encounter another landing, this time on the west side of the tower.
  
  Mr. Teeterwaller comes with you.
  
  Landing, four stories up
  The stairs reach their summit at this landing, which, unlike all of
  the other landings, is on the west side of the tower. Handholds set into the tower wall at regular intervals form a ladder up the side of the tower.
  A closed rounded metal door is set into the tower wall. In the
  center of the door is a wheel.
  
  > Go up
  As you start up the ladder, the door bursts open and guards start pouring out onto the landing. You climb the ladder as quickly as you can.
  
  Mr. Teeterwaller comes with you.
  
  This is the apex of the tower dome, which slopes down in all directions. The air is cool and a steady wind flows past the dome. An access hatch is at the top; it's closed. Handholds set into the roof form a ladder down the west side of the dome.
  The industrial wasteland of the plant complex stretches to the
  north, other towers delineated by colored lights twinkling in the distance, a vast spiderweb of pipes and conduits below.
  
  Guards take up positions at the top of the stairs below the dome, but for some reason do not follow you up the ladder.
  
  > open hatch
  Opened.
  
  Wisps of viscous green vapor waft slowly out from the door. Fortunately, the gas mask seems to be protecting you from the gas.
  
  Someone starts climbing the ladder from below. For a moment you think it's one of the guards, but as the figure draws closer, you see that it's a tall, gray-haired man in a business suit. He reaches the top of the ladder and walks toward you and Teeterwaller, his hands open, presumably to show he's not carrying a weapon. His jacket flaps in the breeze; he reaches down to button it.
  
  "When I was a boy," the man says in a deep, gravelly voice, "my family lived in a small town in Arizona. One day I rode my bike out into the desert, as I often did, in search of dinosaur fossils or Indian relics. After several hours I was still empty-handed and had mostly forgotten what I had set out to find anyway, so with the sun nearing the horizon I started heading home, when a glint in the eastern sky caught my eye."
  
  > look at the Man
  He's a tall, athletic-looking man with gray hair. His dark business suit is fluttering in the strong wind.
  
  The gray-haired man continues. "I watched as the glint turned into a streak, and the streak turned into a fireball, all in the course of a few heartbeats. The sight transfixed me and I barely recognized that I was directly in the path of whatever was falling from the sky, but some instinct made me dive under a nearby boulder, only an instant before the ground shattered from the impact. I hid under my rock as debris rained down."
  
  > wait
  Time passes...
  
  The man continues speaking to you. "My fear soon turned to curiosity and before long I made my way to the crash site. I expected a meteorite, which I pictured as some kind of red glowing sphere with miniature moon craters. What I found was obviously not a meteorite, not even anything natural. But it wasn't anything man-made either. It was the size of a small airplane, but had no wings; its shape was complex and irregular; and it was made of a dull gray material that looked like wet clay."
  
  > wait for a while
  Time passes...
  
  "The wreckage was in a few large pieces, but some small bits were scattered around, and I pocketed a few as souvenirs. I was about to start looking at the larger pieces, when a group of airplanes came over the horizon and made for the crash site. Something made me return to my bicycle and pedal away as fast as I could. I took refuge behind some rocks up a hill half a mile away and watched as the planes disgorged men and machines by parachute."
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  "I stayed for some time watching the men load the pieces of the fallen object onto trucks. Nightfall forced me to abandon my hideout and go home, and when I returned the next day I could find nothing left of the crash; the crater had been filled and even the fragments of rock scattered hundreds of yards away had been swept into the sand."
  
  > wait a while
  Time passes...
  
  "I spent years looking at the fragments I had kept from the crash without recognizing their true nature. A series of chance discoveries, however, led me to realize that the object that crashed was not some experimental military craft, as I had long imagined, and that indeed it was not even of this Earth."
  
  > wait for a while
  Time passes...
  
  "My souvenirs were in fact products of a highly advanced technology, far beyond what was thought possible when I found them and beyond even what is commonly believed possible today, and having discovered a few of their secrets I quickly learned more. I realized at once the commercial potential of my discoveries and set about finding practical applications. You see around you here a small facet of the enterprise that we have built, dedicated to the steady improvement of our society and the world through the carefully controlled introduction of this technology."
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  "I did not know until many years after the crash the fate of the rest of the object. As our company grew, we began to have the resources necessary to cultivate relationships inside the government, and we eventually learned where the pieces recovered from the crash were being studied. We have monitored the progress of the government's studies carefully, and it has been a source of constant frustration for us that these studies have not only been almost completely unproductive, but what little they have gleaned has been hidden behind a veil of military secrecy and national security."
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  "We have for many years known that the government is incapable of putting this technology to proper use, and that we must take control of it for the good of mankind. Unfortunately, even our resources have proven insufficient to correct this problem, at least until now. When we learned that the crash artifacts were to be relocated to a new facility, we saw our chance to intervene, taking what is rightfully and morally ours."
  
  A lightning bolt strikes one of the nearby towers.
  
  > wait
  Time passes...
  
  Teeterwaller, who up to now has been silently listening to the gray-haired man, speaks to him. "`Rightfully and morally' yours," he scoffs. "You're just as bad as the government, hiding this technology for decades. You're worse, in fact, the way you dole it out a little at a time to maximize your profit at everyone else's expense."
  
  The gray-haired man shakes his head slightly. "Profit isn't our motive," he says. "It is society's readiness to absorb change that dictates the rate of our disclosures. If we were to reveal all we knew at one time, the world would plunge into chaos."
  
  "You'll never get away with this," Teeterwaller says. "You actually think the government won't figure out who stole the artifacts?"
  
  "The government will never even suspect they were taken," the gray-haired man responds dismissively. "We replaced the originals with inert duplicates. The fools have never been able to learn anything from the originals anyway; they'll labor for fifty more fruitless years, then shrug, pack the whole mess off to a warehouse in Illinois, and move on to their next assignments."
  
  Thunder rumbles from the sky overhead.
  
  > wait
  Time passes...
  
  The gray-haired man continues. "You have something that belongs to us," he says. "As you can plainly see, there is nowhere for you to go. Despite your weak bargaining position, we can afford to be generous, so I would like to offer both of you positions as Vice Presidents in one of our many exciting subsidiary or affiliated corporations. All you have to do is give me the disk."
  
  A few bright flashes of lightning light the sky directly overhead.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  The gray-haired man looks at you expectantly.
  
  Static electricity crackles through the sky overhead.
  
  > throw the disk
  You throw the disk. Teeterwaller and the gray-haired man follow the disk with their eyes as it arcs into the night sky and disappears into the distance.
  
  "I'm disappointed that we couldn't reach an agreement," the gray-haired man says. He motions to the guards, who come up onto the roof and arrest you.
  
  The guards take you to their security office, and later turn you over to the local police, who arrest you on trespassing charges. You and Teeterwaller tell your fantastic story of hijacked trucks and floating anti-gravity disks, but the police just ignore you.
  
  After a night in the local jail, the police release you, explaining that the company that owns the plant is not pressing charges. In town, you and Teeterwaller find a mechanic to fix the car. You return home, having missed your meeting. Life returns to normal.
  
  In the months that follow, the subject of that strange night seems to become taboo, and you and Teeterwaller never again discuss it. Eventually, Teeterwaller leaves the company; you hear later that he's working for one of those UFO magazines, writing bitter diatribes about government conspiracies and military cover-ups.
  
  You often wonder what might have happened if you had escaped with the odd little black disk, but you feel fortunate enough to have made it through the experience unscathed.
  
  > give the disk to the Man
  "Thank you," he says, taking the disk. He shakes your hand, "Welcome aboard, Mr. Vice President," he says, then turns to Teeterwaller and welcomes him.
  
  As promised, you are immediately appointed a Vice President at AmCaustiCo, a maker of caustic chemical speciality products, and given a plush corner office overlooking a pleasant little woods a safe distance from the smoke-belching factories whose maintenance schedule you are assigned to oversee.
  
  You find your compensation much more than comfortable and your duties agreeably undemanding, leaving you plenty of time to practice your golf and "network" with other top executives at the country club, trading stock tips and dirty jokes. Years later, looking back, you know you made a good career decision that strange night, but you can't help wondering from time to time what might have happened if you'd somehow escaped with the odd little black disk. It's an idle thought, though; you'd just have ended up like Teeterwaller, writing bitter diatribes for some little conspiracy-minded UFO magazine.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  The gray-haired man watches you expectantly. "The perks are very nice for Vice Presidents," he says.
  
  Your hair feels like it's standing on end from the static charge in the air.
  
  > Wait
  Time passes...
  
  The gray-haired man looks at you expectantly.
  
  Thunder roars overhead. Lightning flashes from cloud to cloud in the sky above you. Suddenly, a tongue of lightning cuts through the air directly in front of you, striking the center of the dome.
  
  Somehow, the lightning bolt stays where it is, dancing a little around the top of the dome but continuing to discharge electricity.
  
  > put the disk in the lightning
  You carefully hold out the disk, and very slowly move your hand toward the lightning bolt. Your skin tingles with electricity as you get closer, and your hair starts to stand on end.
  
  A tiny tendril of brilliant white light leaps out from the lightning bolt and touches the disk. You feel a jab and jerk your hand back, but you see that the disk is glowing with an intense blue light, and you start to feel light-headed and disoriented. Teeterwaller grabs your arm, and the two of you rapidly ascend into the sky. The gray haired man reaches his hand out toward you and shouts something, but you're already too far away to hear what he's saying.
  
  The wind picks up speed and changes direction several times as you climb, and you start drifting to the north. Soon the lights of the plant are behind you, and you're over open ground. Silence falls as your own motion matches the wind speed and you move along at the same rate as the surrounding air.
  
  "I can't believe we made it out of there alive!" Teeterwaller says. "This is an amazing find," he says, indicating the disk.
  
  You start descending again, and you see that you're headed for the road--in fact, you can see Teeterwaller's car, right where you left it. The disk's glow fades, and you settle gently to the ground near the car.
  
  Headlights approach from down the road. They draw nearer, and the vehicle starts slowing down and pulling over behind Teeterwaller's car. You almost make a run for it, when you see that the vehicle is a van from a local television station. A young woman in a smart blue dress gets out from the passenger side, and a man in a flannel shirt carrying a video camera follows.
  
  "Excuse me," the woman says as she approaches you. "We've had some reports of strange electrical activity in the sky around here, and I wondered if either of you have seen anything interesting tonight."
  
  Teeterwaller smiles at you. "Yes," he says. "As a matter of fact we have."