Post by Viridis on Jan 22, 2008 2:11:56 GMT -5
Armadillo Bowl - Bowling Alley
This is the heart of the Intrastellar Grakatraxian Habitat (I.G.H.) Armadillo Bowl, a
semi-modular mobile space station. This large room on its lower level is the simulated natural
habitat of the station's primary occupant, a Southern Three-Banded Armadillo. The engineers who
built this habitat, needless to say, got it completely wrong.
The room is dominated by a row of eighteen bowling lanes, far more than one can
expect ever to be in use. Most are regulation size, but the two farthest to the right, #17 and
#18, are dwarfish compared to the others. The lanes are against the wall opposite the entrance.
There is a racks of bowling balls on the wall to the right, consisting of around forty various
balls on four shelves, and a lattice of cubbies containing bowling shoes on the wall just to the
right of the door. A door near the back of the right wall leads to a maintenance area used to
service the lanes.
In addition, the room is supplied with other entertainment. A wide, ornate pinball
machine with a theme of lavish luxury. A pair of arcade machines, one featuring classic arcade
games of the 1970s and 80s, and one featuring ever more elaborate games with advanced graphics,
engines, and controls. The game available on each machine changes every few days. There is
also a pool table. All of the games, including the bowling, are free.
There are a few booths with tables behind the pool table, near the door to the
kitchen, to the left. There are also a few round tables with chairs in the middle of the room.
All the furniture is made made of bright, polished wood. The walls are made of slighter darker
wood, equally smooth. The predominant colors of this bowling alley are brown, orange, tan, and
beige.
And in the corner between the shoes and the balls, a little metal cage, padded with
something resembling astroturf, and filled with balls of crumpled up paper. Sammy's cage.
[ Obvious Exits: <Behind> the Pins, Into the <Kitchen> ]
[ <Out> to the Lower Corridor ]
[ Players: Blood ]
[ Sleepers: Duvazl, Timothy ]
~ Episode 3, Scene 2 ~
End Commercial Break...
Some time has passed in the dark bowling alley. There has been whirring from upstairs, and the occasional thump-thump of something passing in the hallways. For the most part, though, nothing has changed except, perhaps, the disposition of the two small creatures occupying this strange locale. Sammy is lying, half asleep, next to the pinball machine, nearly blocking the light from the little crack admitting entrance to those tinier than himself. His thoughts are drifting through dreamland; he has nothing to do but wait and hope.
Timothy sleeps fitfully and squeaks faintly at times, his dreams plagued by mazes and needles. He isn't awake, but it probably wouldn't take much to wake him. Indeed, he has already awaken and fallen asleep several times tonight.
It's not the natural passage of time that stirs these two sleepers, harmonious but still strangers. It's the click of a switch, a resonant noise, and the lights coming on with a brief little buzz. Suddenly, the alley is lit! Sammy opens his eyes fully in an instant, but it isn't until a few seconds later that he stretches, stands, and looks around.
Timothy might not have sensed the change in the lighting, but the click brings him awake. He seems disoriented for a few moments before his memories catch up with him. He pokes his head out of the crack. "What's going on?" he asks quietly, ready to scurry back into his hole if he decides he doesn't like the goings on.
Sammy turns with a quiver toward the face peeking from the little gap. "It goes on and off sometimes...I don't know when, or why." From the nerves he's displaying, it seems there's a lot that confuses this poor creature. "I keep thinking I'm wanted, or that I should do something..." His tail wavers and rests like a rattlesnake's, without the rattle. "I don't think anyone else is here now, though."
Thump!
Timothy nods a little, sniffing about and letting his senses take in his surroundings. He's about to go back in when he hears the thump, freezing right where he is when he hears it. "What's that?" he asks, whispering.
Sammy looks toward the door to the corridor. "Could be a worker...could be Blood coming back," he goes on with a tremor. His ears flutter slightly. "Look...if you're needed for tests, you will go for them, won't you? You'll survive that way. You've got to do what they tell you."
Timothy's ears fold back at Sammy's suggestion that he cooperate. "But... I just got free before they took me here. I don't want to become a lab mouse again."
Sammy gives the mouse a curious look. "How did you get free?" he asks. Just maybe, if this mouse is a master of escape...could there be a chance?
Thump-thump!
Timothy cringes a little at the thump sounds, looking back over to Sammy. "The cages had a latch we could open from the inside. After that we got out through the ventilation system..."
Sammy nods nervously. There's a ventilation system here, too...there has to be, in space. "I wonder if they could catch us if we got in there somehow," he thinks out loud. There's a grate on the ceiling, but it seems to be welded on.
Timothy shrugs a little... "We got out during the night when everyone was asleep. If it leads outside, then it's possible."
Sammy shakes his head. "Don't you...don't you realize where we are?" He walks some distance away, and glances back at the baseboard with scared eyes.
Timothy tilts his head a little. "Er... no, not really. Just remember that I was eating a scrap of food and the next thing I know I wake up in this dark place and land over there." He points his nose in the direction of the pinsetters.
Sammy sets his body down, his tapered head still pointing at the mouse. He sighs quietly. "You must have gone through the Black Door," he says. "Mouse...you're in space. +We're+ in outer space. We don't +want+ to get outside."
Timothy just stares at Sammy, unblinking. Having not had much contact with the outside world, he doesn't even grasp what he's talking about. He may be intelligent, but he's not learned. "I... don't understand. Why can't we go outside? Is 'Outer Space' the name of this place?"
Thump-thump! WHUMP!
Sammy shudders, first at the mouse's question, and then at the increasingly disturbing and frequent sounds. "Let me...here, maybe you'd better follow me," he suggests. "I'll try and get it across to you." He walks for the main door.
Timothy seems a little wary, but he consents, slipping out of the crack to stand next to Sammy. "Okay..."
"Come on," says the armadillo gently. The door is closed, but there's a small hole in the base, and the compound it's made of is fortunately very light. Sammy sticks his snout into the hole and shifts the sliding door open, with a lot of effort.
Timothy follows, climbing over the armadillo to get inside the sliding door.
Armadillo Bowl - Lower Corridor
Not much of special interest can be found here. It's just a hallway joining the first level of the station. The walls are ridged, metallic and blue, although they're actually made of some hard mineral compound. A video screen on the wall occasionally receives communications from the Curator and his colleagues, or displays visuals from the computer.An airlock leads off to the docking bay, a large door that slides into the wall opens onto the bowling alley and arcade, a broad ramp (that a lever will convert into a staircase) leads up to the second level, and a smaller door behind the staircase leads off into a storage room.
[ Obvious Exits: To the Docking <Bay>, To the <Storage> Room ]
[ To the Bowling <Alley>, <Up> to the Upper Corridor ]
Sammy leads the mouse out of the warm and welcoming bowling alley into a somewhat darker and more foreboding corridor. "This way," he says. "The docking bay door is powered up, since Blood was here a little while ago." He glances at the state of the airlock, with a gleaming yellow-white light beside it. "I guess he's still onboard, somewhere."
Timothy shudders a little at Sammy's comment, though he still looks around curiously at his surroundings. He doesn't feel very safe, though he's glad the armadillo is with him.
Sammy listens for more noises, but hears nothing. His ears swivel. "All right," he says. "Quickly." And he scuttles across the metallic floor for the airlock.
Timothy follows after him, his claws clicking on the floor as he nearly runs to keep up with Sammy.
Armadillo Bowl - Docking Bay
The docking bay is largely empty, as docking bays should be. The floor and walls of the room are made from a cold aquamarine metal; the ceiling is made of something glossy and silver. There are a few calibration tools at stations in two corners of the room, one near the great bay door and one at the other end. A trio of very long shelves, accessible by sliding ladder, run the length of the other side of the room, bearing a few tools for scanning, cleaning, repairs, and so forth. The tools are all clicked into place so as not to go flying into space when the bay is depressurized.
The bay door is built oddly. It has a large, ovaline hard plastic window in its center. Docking can take place through two methods here: the entire door can open, allowing a ship inside, or an appropriately built spacecraft can connect to the hole covered by the window. When this happens, the window slides away into the door, a staircase in the corner is unhooked and wheeled over, and travelers can enter without any depressurization necessary.
The door leading to the lower corridor passes through a small airlock. Both the inner and outer doors are controlled by large black buttons.
[ Obvious Exits: Out into <Space>, <Back> to th
The two frightened mammals move through the two doors of the airlock, which open and close as they approach and pass through. The room beyond is huge, and mostly empty. There is a window at the far side which looks out into blackness, punctuated with only a few dots. "You've looked up in the sky at night, haven't you, mouse?" asks the armadillo.
Timothy looks over at the strange black wall on the opposite side of the airlock, having seen nothing like it before. "A little... I don't like going out at night, though."
Sammy draws closer to it, passing by the medium-sized, pointy, metal-green shuttle in the middle of the bay. No one seems to be here, presently. The staircase is wheeled underneath the window, and Sammy eventually walks up to it. "Here. Can you climb up the stairs? You can hold onto my tail if you like, I'll scramble up."
Blood is currently 29 minutes idle and may not get back to you soon.
Timothy nods a little and grabs ahold of Sammy's tail, trying not to dig in too hard with his claws. "Ready."
Sammy grunts, takes a deep breath, and bounds for the stairs. He clears two stairs in his first bounce, one in his second, and from there he has to leap, grab hold, and scramble. A distant whining sound echoes through the huge chamber, and a faint blast of cold air can be felt. It's a scary place to be.
Timothy tightens his grip as he's pulled up the stairs, so he doesn't fall off with all the leaping and scrambling. He squeaks faintly at the blast of cold air.
Sammy reaches the top and sits still, resting. "Go on...look." They're entirely level with the window, which is covered with a moderately thick piece of transparent plastic. Through it can be seen space...stars, some bright and some very distant. And not far away, a large spaceship, silver with fiery red trim.
Timothy swallows a little, trying not to think about how far up they are, and pads up to the glass. It takes him a little to realize that the the wall is actually transparent and he's seeing outside into the blackness of space. He just gapes, feeling very small. "We're... in the stars?"
Sammy remains silent for a while. "We're out there," he whispers at last. "When you look up and wonder what's out there...we're out there." His tail falls flat, and the gust of air issues again, this time with a distant -kachunk- sound.
Timothy just stares... trying to comprehend the magnitude of it all. He's finally brought out of his revire by the odd sounds and gust of air. "What's that?" he asks, starting to feel a bit worried.
Sammy glances upward. "Could be the crews are coming back to see Blood off. They'll have to depressurize in here if they do...take the air away." He closes his eyes. "But it's probably that strange closed room upstairs, shifting around again. It does that."
Timothy bites his lip. "Maybe we'd better leave, then..." he suggests. "I've never heard of a room that could move," he says, tilting his head curiously.
Sammy nods. "You've seen all you needed to see?" he asks, turning about. He's obviously had his fill of this view by now.
Timothy nods a little to Sammy. "Yeah... I think so. Not sure I understand everything, but if we're just... floating somewhere, then there really isn't an outside to go to."
Sammy nods gravely. "That's it exactly." He lets the mouse grasp his tail again, then bounds down the stairs hurriedly, more easily than he came up. "I don't like to be in here," he confesses.
Timothy again grabs ahold of Sammy's tail. "Well, I wouldn't like to be anywhere where they sucked the air out, I think," he replies.
"That's true!" says the armadillo with a smattering of interest--he does still care about staying alive, at least. They cross the room quickly, the armadillo not pausing to let the mouse off, unless he asks. And the airlocks again slide open for them.
Timothy doesn't mind being carried along, waiting until the armadillo stops before letting go. He sighs a little, looking somewhat resigned now. "So, even if I'm not in a cage, I'm still in a prison," he mumbles. "There isn't any way to get out of this place?"
The airlock is closed securely, wit the only light coming from a pair of green and blue bulbs near the ceiling, when the mouse asks his question. "Yes," says the armadillo resentfully. "We're in a big cage. In a big zoo, for aliens. It's so surreal...and I just want to go home." It's not the first time Sammy's uttered that sentence, and it won't be the last.
Timothy sighs, shivering a little. It didn't matter how much space there was here, or how they tried to dress it up, it was still horrible because it wasn't where he wanted to be and there was no way he could go somewhere else. "Me too..." he replies quietly.
The other door opens, and Sammy goes out, swinging his head around to see if anyone's there. The absence of others, combined with the intermittent sounds, is getting ever more ominous. "What's your name?" he asks.
Timothy follows after, worry and fear starting to replace his melancholy. "T-timothy," he replies. "Yours?"
Armadillo Bowl - Lower Corridor
Not much of special interest can be found here. It's just a hallway joining the first level of the station. The walls are ridged, metallic and blue, although they're actually made of some hard mineral compound. A video screen on the wall occasionally receives communications from the Curator and his colleagues, or displays visuals from the computer.An airlock leads off to the docking bay, a large door that slides into the wall opens onto the bowling alley and arcade, a broad ramp (that a lever will convert into a staircase) leads up to the second level, and a smaller door behind the staircase leads off into a storage room.
[ Obvious Exits: To the Docking <Bay>, To the <Storage> Room ]
[ To the Bowling <Alley>, <Up> to the Upper Corridor ]
"I'm Sammy," says the armadillo. "They nabbed me fi...six days ago. I think it's six days, anyway. I think they turn the lights on during the day." Which doesn't make sense, in space, anyway, but it's something to cling to. "The people who run this place are crazy. They must be. You saw the way the Curator behaves."
Timothy nods a little. "I'd say it's a pleasure, Sammy, but not here, not like this." He nods again when he mentions the behavior of the curator. "What do they even want with us, anyway?"
Sammy strolls quietly through the bluish corridor, spooked by the strips of light. "I don't know," he admits. "I think they might be testing us...but it's possible they just really don't know what they want with us. I think we're kind of on our own...most of the time." He gives the mouse a sympathetic look. "Did you have family?"
Timothy sighs a little, then shakes his head. "No, not really... but the other mice in the lab... we knew each other... Maybe it won't be so bad, if they do leave us alone most of the time."
WHUMP!
Sammy leaps at the abrupt noise. "Now that's just...that's..." He keeps mumbling sporadically as he runs back inside the bowling alley, finding the door ajar as he left it. "Come on!" He doesn't want to be here if a garrison of soldiers or shuttle mechanics or some such comes marching through.
Timothy squeaks and runs quickly after Sammy, on all fours as he is accustomed to. "What is it?" He asks that a lot lately.
Armadillo Bowl - Bowling Alley
This is the heart of the Intrastellar Grakatraxian Habitat (I.G.H.) Armadillo Bowl, a
semi-modular mobile space station. This large room on its lower level is the simulated natural
habitat of the station's primary occupant, a Southern Three-Banded Armadillo. The engineers who
built this habitat, needless to say, got it completely wrong.
The room is dominated by a row of eighteen bowling lanes, far more than one can
expect ever to be in use. Most are regulation size, but the two farthest to the right, #17 and
#18, are dwarfish compared to the others. The lanes are against the wall opposite the entrance.
There is a racks of bowling balls on the wall to the right, consisting of around forty various
balls on four shelves, and a lattice of cubbies containing bowling shoes on the wall just to the
right of the door. A door near the back of the right wall leads to a maintenance area used to
service the lanes.
In addition, the room is supplied with other entertainment. A wide, ornate pinball
machine with a theme of lavish luxury. A pair of arcade machines, one featuring classic arcade
games of the 1970s and 80s, and one featuring ever more elaborate games with advanced graphics,
engines, and controls. The game available on each machine changes every few days. There is
also a pool table. All of the games, including the bowling, are free.
There are a few booths with tables behind the pool table, near the door to the
kitchen, to the left. There are also a few round tables with chairs in the middle of the room.
All the furniture is made made of bright, polished wood. The walls are made of slighter darker
wood, equally smooth. The predominant colors of this bowling alley are brown, orange, tan, and
beige.
And in the corner between the shoes and the balls, a little metal cage, padded with
something resembling astroturf, and filled with balls of crumpled up paper. Sammy's cage.
[ Obvious Exits: <Behind> the Pins, Into the <Kitchen> ]
[ <Out> to the Lower Corridor ]
[ Sleepers: Duvazl ]
Sammy looks behind anxiously through the hole at the base of the door. "I don't know," he frets, "but it could be a big machine headed this way, or a troop of people..." He shudders. "Some of them are the furry striped people, like Blood. I've seen others, though. Some aren't so bad...some are worse." He catches his breath on the other side of the door. "You lived in a laboratory? Are you a scientist?" As he peers, he realizes the mouse isn't.
Timothy shudders. Worse than Blood? That's hard to imagine. He shakes his head again. "No, try 'experiment'. I'm a lab mouse. Or was. And looks like I'm going to be again."
"Experiment. Oh. Ohhh. That explains why that creature on the other end of that machine, that phone, thought you might be valuable, I guess." His body sags. "You've had something done to you, haven't you?"
Timothy nods to the armadillo. "They stuck needles in me, made me run in mazes, all sorts of weird tests. Most not very pleasent. Something about increasing my intelligence and lifespan, but I suspect there was more to it than that."
Sammy looks quite disturbed by that. "Mazes...? And that's why you're here, isn't it? You're here to see if it worked." He quick-steps away, toward the tables and chairs, toward the source of food. "I wonder if you'll be better than me at figuring out the way this place works. I already start to see patterns, but I'm not so bright as all that...I can't put them together on my own."
Timothy shrugs, following Sammy to the food. "I have no idea why I'm here, but I guess that might be it." To your other statement, he sighs, sitting on his haunches. "I dunno... maybe. This is all pretty new to me, and the only experience I have outside this is in a lab, pretty much."
Sammy goes to a little blue platter full of water, sitting by one of the wooden tables. He laps up a bit of it and invites Timothy to do the same. "Where did you live before the laboratory?"
Timothy nods graciously and laps at the offered water. "In the city. There was a farmer's market there, with a lot of food."
Sammy nods understandingly. "Did the scientists kidnap you from the market?" His eyes gain clarity in their amber depth. "Were you stealing?"
Timothy blinks at the questions. "Yeah, they kidnapped me. And some others too... I wouldn't call it stealing; we just ate the leavings. There was plenty of that there to not worry about trying to steal from the farmers. More dangerous to get the food with the humans around.
Sammy's scales shimmer as they move over his hidden muscles. "You're right. Garbage is garbage, and if someone wants it, they should have it." He finishes drinking and wanders toward the kitchen, but remains in the seating area, in front of a central table post. "Why you? Is there something special about you, Timothy? Or about mice in general that I don't know?"
Timothy tilts his head. "You mean, why did they kidnap me? Heck if I know," he replies. "And I wasn't the only one, either, like I said."
"I don't like it," says the armadillo. "I don't like it at all. And I'm sure...I'm sure you don't like where it led, either." He lowers his head in something like shame. "Well...I don't know yet. It's possible this place isn't so bad, really. I mean...it's filled with games..." He gestures with his tail toward the lanes, the arcade. "Designed for humans...if only we could play them..." He looks up. "And mysteries...wonderful machines you've never heard of...well, maybe +you've+ heard of them..." He finishes by looking straight at Timothy. "I guess the best feature of all is that now I've got a friend. And you've got one...too."
Timothy nods a little. "Never said I liked it either. I sure didn't ask for them to take me away." He smiles a little and nods to Sammy's final statement. "Thanks... always better than going it alone."
Sammy seems moved, though it's hard to tell. "That's one more thing down, then," he says mostly to himself. "Company." A little chirp, and then he's off to the kitchen. "It feels warmer already," he remarks without prompting. "In here, Timothy--this is where we get our food, when we can!"
Timothy grins a little. Perhaps the company is a bit different from what he's used to, but he doesn't mind. "Coming," he says, following him into the kitchen.
The Armadillo Bowl theme plays gently on xylophone, and the scene gradually fades. Second commercial break.
This is the heart of the Intrastellar Grakatraxian Habitat (I.G.H.) Armadillo Bowl, a
semi-modular mobile space station. This large room on its lower level is the simulated natural
habitat of the station's primary occupant, a Southern Three-Banded Armadillo. The engineers who
built this habitat, needless to say, got it completely wrong.
The room is dominated by a row of eighteen bowling lanes, far more than one can
expect ever to be in use. Most are regulation size, but the two farthest to the right, #17 and
#18, are dwarfish compared to the others. The lanes are against the wall opposite the entrance.
There is a racks of bowling balls on the wall to the right, consisting of around forty various
balls on four shelves, and a lattice of cubbies containing bowling shoes on the wall just to the
right of the door. A door near the back of the right wall leads to a maintenance area used to
service the lanes.
In addition, the room is supplied with other entertainment. A wide, ornate pinball
machine with a theme of lavish luxury. A pair of arcade machines, one featuring classic arcade
games of the 1970s and 80s, and one featuring ever more elaborate games with advanced graphics,
engines, and controls. The game available on each machine changes every few days. There is
also a pool table. All of the games, including the bowling, are free.
There are a few booths with tables behind the pool table, near the door to the
kitchen, to the left. There are also a few round tables with chairs in the middle of the room.
All the furniture is made made of bright, polished wood. The walls are made of slighter darker
wood, equally smooth. The predominant colors of this bowling alley are brown, orange, tan, and
beige.
And in the corner between the shoes and the balls, a little metal cage, padded with
something resembling astroturf, and filled with balls of crumpled up paper. Sammy's cage.
[ Obvious Exits: <Behind> the Pins, Into the <Kitchen> ]
[ <Out> to the Lower Corridor ]
[ Players: Blood ]
[ Sleepers: Duvazl, Timothy ]
~ Episode 3, Scene 2 ~
End Commercial Break...
Some time has passed in the dark bowling alley. There has been whirring from upstairs, and the occasional thump-thump of something passing in the hallways. For the most part, though, nothing has changed except, perhaps, the disposition of the two small creatures occupying this strange locale. Sammy is lying, half asleep, next to the pinball machine, nearly blocking the light from the little crack admitting entrance to those tinier than himself. His thoughts are drifting through dreamland; he has nothing to do but wait and hope.
Timothy sleeps fitfully and squeaks faintly at times, his dreams plagued by mazes and needles. He isn't awake, but it probably wouldn't take much to wake him. Indeed, he has already awaken and fallen asleep several times tonight.
It's not the natural passage of time that stirs these two sleepers, harmonious but still strangers. It's the click of a switch, a resonant noise, and the lights coming on with a brief little buzz. Suddenly, the alley is lit! Sammy opens his eyes fully in an instant, but it isn't until a few seconds later that he stretches, stands, and looks around.
Timothy might not have sensed the change in the lighting, but the click brings him awake. He seems disoriented for a few moments before his memories catch up with him. He pokes his head out of the crack. "What's going on?" he asks quietly, ready to scurry back into his hole if he decides he doesn't like the goings on.
Sammy turns with a quiver toward the face peeking from the little gap. "It goes on and off sometimes...I don't know when, or why." From the nerves he's displaying, it seems there's a lot that confuses this poor creature. "I keep thinking I'm wanted, or that I should do something..." His tail wavers and rests like a rattlesnake's, without the rattle. "I don't think anyone else is here now, though."
Thump!
Timothy nods a little, sniffing about and letting his senses take in his surroundings. He's about to go back in when he hears the thump, freezing right where he is when he hears it. "What's that?" he asks, whispering.
Sammy looks toward the door to the corridor. "Could be a worker...could be Blood coming back," he goes on with a tremor. His ears flutter slightly. "Look...if you're needed for tests, you will go for them, won't you? You'll survive that way. You've got to do what they tell you."
Timothy's ears fold back at Sammy's suggestion that he cooperate. "But... I just got free before they took me here. I don't want to become a lab mouse again."
Sammy gives the mouse a curious look. "How did you get free?" he asks. Just maybe, if this mouse is a master of escape...could there be a chance?
Thump-thump!
Timothy cringes a little at the thump sounds, looking back over to Sammy. "The cages had a latch we could open from the inside. After that we got out through the ventilation system..."
Sammy nods nervously. There's a ventilation system here, too...there has to be, in space. "I wonder if they could catch us if we got in there somehow," he thinks out loud. There's a grate on the ceiling, but it seems to be welded on.
Timothy shrugs a little... "We got out during the night when everyone was asleep. If it leads outside, then it's possible."
Sammy shakes his head. "Don't you...don't you realize where we are?" He walks some distance away, and glances back at the baseboard with scared eyes.
Timothy tilts his head a little. "Er... no, not really. Just remember that I was eating a scrap of food and the next thing I know I wake up in this dark place and land over there." He points his nose in the direction of the pinsetters.
Sammy sets his body down, his tapered head still pointing at the mouse. He sighs quietly. "You must have gone through the Black Door," he says. "Mouse...you're in space. +We're+ in outer space. We don't +want+ to get outside."
Timothy just stares at Sammy, unblinking. Having not had much contact with the outside world, he doesn't even grasp what he's talking about. He may be intelligent, but he's not learned. "I... don't understand. Why can't we go outside? Is 'Outer Space' the name of this place?"
Thump-thump! WHUMP!
Sammy shudders, first at the mouse's question, and then at the increasingly disturbing and frequent sounds. "Let me...here, maybe you'd better follow me," he suggests. "I'll try and get it across to you." He walks for the main door.
Timothy seems a little wary, but he consents, slipping out of the crack to stand next to Sammy. "Okay..."
"Come on," says the armadillo gently. The door is closed, but there's a small hole in the base, and the compound it's made of is fortunately very light. Sammy sticks his snout into the hole and shifts the sliding door open, with a lot of effort.
Timothy follows, climbing over the armadillo to get inside the sliding door.
Armadillo Bowl - Lower Corridor
Not much of special interest can be found here. It's just a hallway joining the first level of the station. The walls are ridged, metallic and blue, although they're actually made of some hard mineral compound. A video screen on the wall occasionally receives communications from the Curator and his colleagues, or displays visuals from the computer.An airlock leads off to the docking bay, a large door that slides into the wall opens onto the bowling alley and arcade, a broad ramp (that a lever will convert into a staircase) leads up to the second level, and a smaller door behind the staircase leads off into a storage room.
[ Obvious Exits: To the Docking <Bay>, To the <Storage> Room ]
[ To the Bowling <Alley>, <Up> to the Upper Corridor ]
Sammy leads the mouse out of the warm and welcoming bowling alley into a somewhat darker and more foreboding corridor. "This way," he says. "The docking bay door is powered up, since Blood was here a little while ago." He glances at the state of the airlock, with a gleaming yellow-white light beside it. "I guess he's still onboard, somewhere."
Timothy shudders a little at Sammy's comment, though he still looks around curiously at his surroundings. He doesn't feel very safe, though he's glad the armadillo is with him.
Sammy listens for more noises, but hears nothing. His ears swivel. "All right," he says. "Quickly." And he scuttles across the metallic floor for the airlock.
Timothy follows after him, his claws clicking on the floor as he nearly runs to keep up with Sammy.
Armadillo Bowl - Docking Bay
The docking bay is largely empty, as docking bays should be. The floor and walls of the room are made from a cold aquamarine metal; the ceiling is made of something glossy and silver. There are a few calibration tools at stations in two corners of the room, one near the great bay door and one at the other end. A trio of very long shelves, accessible by sliding ladder, run the length of the other side of the room, bearing a few tools for scanning, cleaning, repairs, and so forth. The tools are all clicked into place so as not to go flying into space when the bay is depressurized.
The bay door is built oddly. It has a large, ovaline hard plastic window in its center. Docking can take place through two methods here: the entire door can open, allowing a ship inside, or an appropriately built spacecraft can connect to the hole covered by the window. When this happens, the window slides away into the door, a staircase in the corner is unhooked and wheeled over, and travelers can enter without any depressurization necessary.
The door leading to the lower corridor passes through a small airlock. Both the inner and outer doors are controlled by large black buttons.
[ Obvious Exits: Out into <Space>, <Back> to th
The two frightened mammals move through the two doors of the airlock, which open and close as they approach and pass through. The room beyond is huge, and mostly empty. There is a window at the far side which looks out into blackness, punctuated with only a few dots. "You've looked up in the sky at night, haven't you, mouse?" asks the armadillo.
Timothy looks over at the strange black wall on the opposite side of the airlock, having seen nothing like it before. "A little... I don't like going out at night, though."
Sammy draws closer to it, passing by the medium-sized, pointy, metal-green shuttle in the middle of the bay. No one seems to be here, presently. The staircase is wheeled underneath the window, and Sammy eventually walks up to it. "Here. Can you climb up the stairs? You can hold onto my tail if you like, I'll scramble up."
Blood is currently 29 minutes idle and may not get back to you soon.
Timothy nods a little and grabs ahold of Sammy's tail, trying not to dig in too hard with his claws. "Ready."
Sammy grunts, takes a deep breath, and bounds for the stairs. He clears two stairs in his first bounce, one in his second, and from there he has to leap, grab hold, and scramble. A distant whining sound echoes through the huge chamber, and a faint blast of cold air can be felt. It's a scary place to be.
Timothy tightens his grip as he's pulled up the stairs, so he doesn't fall off with all the leaping and scrambling. He squeaks faintly at the blast of cold air.
Sammy reaches the top and sits still, resting. "Go on...look." They're entirely level with the window, which is covered with a moderately thick piece of transparent plastic. Through it can be seen space...stars, some bright and some very distant. And not far away, a large spaceship, silver with fiery red trim.
Timothy swallows a little, trying not to think about how far up they are, and pads up to the glass. It takes him a little to realize that the the wall is actually transparent and he's seeing outside into the blackness of space. He just gapes, feeling very small. "We're... in the stars?"
Sammy remains silent for a while. "We're out there," he whispers at last. "When you look up and wonder what's out there...we're out there." His tail falls flat, and the gust of air issues again, this time with a distant -kachunk- sound.
Timothy just stares... trying to comprehend the magnitude of it all. He's finally brought out of his revire by the odd sounds and gust of air. "What's that?" he asks, starting to feel a bit worried.
Sammy glances upward. "Could be the crews are coming back to see Blood off. They'll have to depressurize in here if they do...take the air away." He closes his eyes. "But it's probably that strange closed room upstairs, shifting around again. It does that."
Timothy bites his lip. "Maybe we'd better leave, then..." he suggests. "I've never heard of a room that could move," he says, tilting his head curiously.
Sammy nods. "You've seen all you needed to see?" he asks, turning about. He's obviously had his fill of this view by now.
Timothy nods a little to Sammy. "Yeah... I think so. Not sure I understand everything, but if we're just... floating somewhere, then there really isn't an outside to go to."
Sammy nods gravely. "That's it exactly." He lets the mouse grasp his tail again, then bounds down the stairs hurriedly, more easily than he came up. "I don't like to be in here," he confesses.
Timothy again grabs ahold of Sammy's tail. "Well, I wouldn't like to be anywhere where they sucked the air out, I think," he replies.
"That's true!" says the armadillo with a smattering of interest--he does still care about staying alive, at least. They cross the room quickly, the armadillo not pausing to let the mouse off, unless he asks. And the airlocks again slide open for them.
Timothy doesn't mind being carried along, waiting until the armadillo stops before letting go. He sighs a little, looking somewhat resigned now. "So, even if I'm not in a cage, I'm still in a prison," he mumbles. "There isn't any way to get out of this place?"
The airlock is closed securely, wit the only light coming from a pair of green and blue bulbs near the ceiling, when the mouse asks his question. "Yes," says the armadillo resentfully. "We're in a big cage. In a big zoo, for aliens. It's so surreal...and I just want to go home." It's not the first time Sammy's uttered that sentence, and it won't be the last.
Timothy sighs, shivering a little. It didn't matter how much space there was here, or how they tried to dress it up, it was still horrible because it wasn't where he wanted to be and there was no way he could go somewhere else. "Me too..." he replies quietly.
The other door opens, and Sammy goes out, swinging his head around to see if anyone's there. The absence of others, combined with the intermittent sounds, is getting ever more ominous. "What's your name?" he asks.
Timothy follows after, worry and fear starting to replace his melancholy. "T-timothy," he replies. "Yours?"
Armadillo Bowl - Lower Corridor
Not much of special interest can be found here. It's just a hallway joining the first level of the station. The walls are ridged, metallic and blue, although they're actually made of some hard mineral compound. A video screen on the wall occasionally receives communications from the Curator and his colleagues, or displays visuals from the computer.An airlock leads off to the docking bay, a large door that slides into the wall opens onto the bowling alley and arcade, a broad ramp (that a lever will convert into a staircase) leads up to the second level, and a smaller door behind the staircase leads off into a storage room.
[ Obvious Exits: To the Docking <Bay>, To the <Storage> Room ]
[ To the Bowling <Alley>, <Up> to the Upper Corridor ]
"I'm Sammy," says the armadillo. "They nabbed me fi...six days ago. I think it's six days, anyway. I think they turn the lights on during the day." Which doesn't make sense, in space, anyway, but it's something to cling to. "The people who run this place are crazy. They must be. You saw the way the Curator behaves."
Timothy nods a little. "I'd say it's a pleasure, Sammy, but not here, not like this." He nods again when he mentions the behavior of the curator. "What do they even want with us, anyway?"
Sammy strolls quietly through the bluish corridor, spooked by the strips of light. "I don't know," he admits. "I think they might be testing us...but it's possible they just really don't know what they want with us. I think we're kind of on our own...most of the time." He gives the mouse a sympathetic look. "Did you have family?"
Timothy sighs a little, then shakes his head. "No, not really... but the other mice in the lab... we knew each other... Maybe it won't be so bad, if they do leave us alone most of the time."
WHUMP!
Sammy leaps at the abrupt noise. "Now that's just...that's..." He keeps mumbling sporadically as he runs back inside the bowling alley, finding the door ajar as he left it. "Come on!" He doesn't want to be here if a garrison of soldiers or shuttle mechanics or some such comes marching through.
Timothy squeaks and runs quickly after Sammy, on all fours as he is accustomed to. "What is it?" He asks that a lot lately.
Armadillo Bowl - Bowling Alley
This is the heart of the Intrastellar Grakatraxian Habitat (I.G.H.) Armadillo Bowl, a
semi-modular mobile space station. This large room on its lower level is the simulated natural
habitat of the station's primary occupant, a Southern Three-Banded Armadillo. The engineers who
built this habitat, needless to say, got it completely wrong.
The room is dominated by a row of eighteen bowling lanes, far more than one can
expect ever to be in use. Most are regulation size, but the two farthest to the right, #17 and
#18, are dwarfish compared to the others. The lanes are against the wall opposite the entrance.
There is a racks of bowling balls on the wall to the right, consisting of around forty various
balls on four shelves, and a lattice of cubbies containing bowling shoes on the wall just to the
right of the door. A door near the back of the right wall leads to a maintenance area used to
service the lanes.
In addition, the room is supplied with other entertainment. A wide, ornate pinball
machine with a theme of lavish luxury. A pair of arcade machines, one featuring classic arcade
games of the 1970s and 80s, and one featuring ever more elaborate games with advanced graphics,
engines, and controls. The game available on each machine changes every few days. There is
also a pool table. All of the games, including the bowling, are free.
There are a few booths with tables behind the pool table, near the door to the
kitchen, to the left. There are also a few round tables with chairs in the middle of the room.
All the furniture is made made of bright, polished wood. The walls are made of slighter darker
wood, equally smooth. The predominant colors of this bowling alley are brown, orange, tan, and
beige.
And in the corner between the shoes and the balls, a little metal cage, padded with
something resembling astroturf, and filled with balls of crumpled up paper. Sammy's cage.
[ Obvious Exits: <Behind> the Pins, Into the <Kitchen> ]
[ <Out> to the Lower Corridor ]
[ Sleepers: Duvazl ]
Sammy looks behind anxiously through the hole at the base of the door. "I don't know," he frets, "but it could be a big machine headed this way, or a troop of people..." He shudders. "Some of them are the furry striped people, like Blood. I've seen others, though. Some aren't so bad...some are worse." He catches his breath on the other side of the door. "You lived in a laboratory? Are you a scientist?" As he peers, he realizes the mouse isn't.
Timothy shudders. Worse than Blood? That's hard to imagine. He shakes his head again. "No, try 'experiment'. I'm a lab mouse. Or was. And looks like I'm going to be again."
"Experiment. Oh. Ohhh. That explains why that creature on the other end of that machine, that phone, thought you might be valuable, I guess." His body sags. "You've had something done to you, haven't you?"
Timothy nods to the armadillo. "They stuck needles in me, made me run in mazes, all sorts of weird tests. Most not very pleasent. Something about increasing my intelligence and lifespan, but I suspect there was more to it than that."
Sammy looks quite disturbed by that. "Mazes...? And that's why you're here, isn't it? You're here to see if it worked." He quick-steps away, toward the tables and chairs, toward the source of food. "I wonder if you'll be better than me at figuring out the way this place works. I already start to see patterns, but I'm not so bright as all that...I can't put them together on my own."
Timothy shrugs, following Sammy to the food. "I have no idea why I'm here, but I guess that might be it." To your other statement, he sighs, sitting on his haunches. "I dunno... maybe. This is all pretty new to me, and the only experience I have outside this is in a lab, pretty much."
Sammy goes to a little blue platter full of water, sitting by one of the wooden tables. He laps up a bit of it and invites Timothy to do the same. "Where did you live before the laboratory?"
Timothy nods graciously and laps at the offered water. "In the city. There was a farmer's market there, with a lot of food."
Sammy nods understandingly. "Did the scientists kidnap you from the market?" His eyes gain clarity in their amber depth. "Were you stealing?"
Timothy blinks at the questions. "Yeah, they kidnapped me. And some others too... I wouldn't call it stealing; we just ate the leavings. There was plenty of that there to not worry about trying to steal from the farmers. More dangerous to get the food with the humans around.
Sammy's scales shimmer as they move over his hidden muscles. "You're right. Garbage is garbage, and if someone wants it, they should have it." He finishes drinking and wanders toward the kitchen, but remains in the seating area, in front of a central table post. "Why you? Is there something special about you, Timothy? Or about mice in general that I don't know?"
Timothy tilts his head. "You mean, why did they kidnap me? Heck if I know," he replies. "And I wasn't the only one, either, like I said."
"I don't like it," says the armadillo. "I don't like it at all. And I'm sure...I'm sure you don't like where it led, either." He lowers his head in something like shame. "Well...I don't know yet. It's possible this place isn't so bad, really. I mean...it's filled with games..." He gestures with his tail toward the lanes, the arcade. "Designed for humans...if only we could play them..." He looks up. "And mysteries...wonderful machines you've never heard of...well, maybe +you've+ heard of them..." He finishes by looking straight at Timothy. "I guess the best feature of all is that now I've got a friend. And you've got one...too."
Timothy nods a little. "Never said I liked it either. I sure didn't ask for them to take me away." He smiles a little and nods to Sammy's final statement. "Thanks... always better than going it alone."
Sammy seems moved, though it's hard to tell. "That's one more thing down, then," he says mostly to himself. "Company." A little chirp, and then he's off to the kitchen. "It feels warmer already," he remarks without prompting. "In here, Timothy--this is where we get our food, when we can!"
Timothy grins a little. Perhaps the company is a bit different from what he's used to, but he doesn't mind. "Coming," he says, following him into the kitchen.
The Armadillo Bowl theme plays gently on xylophone, and the scene gradually fades. Second commercial break.