text: > go downward
  As soon as you enter the room, you sense something deeply unusual, but intriguing. The code running on your grid of Plan 9 machines, the complicated interwoven mesh of namespaces, seems to have hooked into the low-level machine code of the universe. New file descriptors have been mounted allowing access to fundamental abstractions. If you dare, you could bind two normally distinct perceptual constructs into a single union.
  
  Your house, in the basement
  Your ex-girlfriend used to stay down here, but now the area is mostly storage...and your grid hardware. In the center of the dark concrete floor is a flimsy table with numerous aging computers both under it and on top. A tangle of ethernet and power cables criss-cross the room like spiderwebs.
  
  Your cat Strawberry is here.
  
  You can also see Reality and Fiction here.
  
  Strawberry's head peeks out from behind one of the grid computers.
  
  > examine the fiction
  Fiction, imagination, dreams, stories, the power of narrative - somehow the air is thick and heavy with these intangibles, almost shimmering, almost humming, almost full of the scent of light blue flowers.
  
  Strawberry meows and sharpens her claws on the carpeting of the stairway.
  
  > examine the reality
  Reality, the objective shared state of the external world, is dense here. The stable information weave of predictable continuous phenomena provides the substrate of your cognition and perception.
  
  Strawberry's tail brushes by your leg as she sniffs at your toes.
  
  > check the grid
  The physical hardware of your grid is cheap and worn. A mixture of no-name hardware and old dell minitowers, the processor speed, RAM, and storage space is all well below the current standard. The software is a different story - your Advanced Namespace Tools weave the physical boxes together into a coordinated whole. Sometimes you feel like the data within, how it is organized and flows, is like a living thing.
  
  The connection between the servers and the abstraction layers of the universe is hard to see clearly. Somewhere in the tangle of cables is a higher-dimensional bend, a knot that would be impossibe in three dimensions. Around that locus, your mind tries to map the information to color and shape and texture, but the perceptual constructs are unstable, constantly shifting. Staring directly at the point of connection is like watching through a kaleidoscope as chrome snakes crawl through a maze of mirrors.
  
  Strawberry is standing still, tail twitching slightly.
  
  > take reality
  Reality is fixed in place.
  
  Strawberry licks a paw and washes her forehead with it.
  
  > look at what you're carrying with you
  You're carrying:
  Forsee Why You And I Are To Be One (4CY UNI R2B 1)
  a pair of mirror shades
  a wallet
  
  Strawberry is curled up and napping in the corner.
  
  > wear the shades
  The mirror shades filter the brightness of day perfectly, removing your squint and making it easier to smile. Careful wearing them indoors though.
  You put on the pair of mirror shades.
  
  Strawberry is curled up and napping in the corner.
  
  > look
  Your house, in the basement
  Your ex-girlfriend used to stay down here, but now the area is mostly storage...and your grid hardware. In the center of the dark concrete floor is a flimsy table with numerous aging computers both under it and on top. A tangle of ethernet and power cables criss-cross the room like spiderwebs.
  
  Your cat Strawberry is here.
  
  You can also see Reality and Fiction here.
  
  Strawberry is curled up and napping in the corner.
  
  > check the grid
  The physical hardware of your grid is cheap and worn. A mixture of no-name hardware and old dell minitowers, the processor speed, RAM, and storage space is all well below the current standard. The software is a different story - your Advanced Namespace Tools weave the physical boxes together into a coordinated whole. Sometimes you feel like the data within, how it is organized and flows, is like a living thing.
  
  The connection between the servers and the abstraction layers of the universe is hard to see clearly. Somewhere in the tangle of cables is a higher-dimensional bend, a knot that would be impossibe in three dimensions. Around that locus, your mind tries to map the information to color and shape and texture, but the perceptual constructs are unstable, constantly shifting. Staring directly at the point of connection is like watching through a kaleidoscope as chrome snakes crawl through a maze of mirrors.
  
  Strawberry wakes up and wanders upstairs.
  
  > Up
  This is a modest one story house, cluttered by a decade of being lived in. Bookshelves line the walls. Your Plan 9 terminal is here, connected to the grid servers downstairs. Your dark wooden upright piano has a collection of Schumann's music open on the music rack.
  
  Your cat Strawberry is here.
  
  You can also see some bookshelves, a terminal and a piano here.
  
  Strawberry's tail brushes by your leg as she sniffs at your toes.
  
  > take the cat
  Strawberry lets you hold her for about fifteen seconds before squirming free of your grasp, climbing your shoulder with help from sharp tiny claws, and hops to the floor behind you.
  
  > examine music
  The sheet music on the piano is a Henle Urtext of some of Schumann's finest compositions, including the Dichterliebe.
  
  Strawberry is standing still, tail twitching slightly.
  
  > play the sheet music
  Strawberry licks a paw and washes her forehead with it.
  
  > play the piano
  You fool around with a rough idea for a song about a cute barista at your local coffeeshop. Your favorite lyric is 'My latte is strong but my heartbeat is stronger.'
  
  Strawberry is curled up and napping in the corner.
  
  > check your inventory
  You're carrying:
  Forsee Why You And I Are To Be One (4CY UNI R2B 1)
  a pair of mirror shades (being worn)
  a wallet
  
  Strawberry is curled up and napping in the corner.
  
  > read the 4cy
  The book you wrote in your mid-20s is an unreadable and embarassing mish-mash of philosophy and autobiography. It represents a failed approach to creation, communication, and life. You feel a powerful desire to express your break with the past by exiling this book to an entirely different dimension.
  
  Strawberry is curled up and napping in the corner.
  
  > Exits
  You can go down to the basement or out to Milwaukee St.
  
  Strawberry yawns, stretches, and heads to the basement.