A.DistrictsPitol TractReading: Open fileReadingOpen fileNeed to knowMy clearancePreview cardMap+InteriorsHolocene RoomPuzzle RoomSiloLocationsPitol TractPossible conversations191'NO', in black marker, prefixes the word 'EXIT'.Lines1'THE STARS ARE OURS' is still faintly visible, nearly obliterated by sun and rain.Lines1'WARNING: FALL HAZARD.'Lines1"Ah here you are yes here. Do you like life in True Time?" She bounces excitedly, her metal headgear still jingling as she moves.Lines347"Back again, CASCADE? Might want to, you know, get the fuck on with it."Lines213"CASCADE." The barest of nods. "I've been playing 'I Spy' relentlessly with myself to pass the time. Pretty even as things stand, but I'm…Lines1,138"Hello, hero."Lines602"Here again."Lines1,077"Hersh."Lines730"Hey, bud!"Lines222"It's cold out here." The girl rolls her shoulders and lightly stamps a foot.Lines1,530"Long time, no speaky, nameless one."Lines198More conversations 179A blurry photo of protestors hurling bricks. The headline: 'NESTOR MUST GO.'Lines1A bottle, left intentionally. A past visitor, nodding at a future one.Lines1A broken connection.Lines1A discarded junction, meant for fluid lines.Lines1A dry watering hole. Small packs gathered here to sip and trade grunts.Lines1A faint draft whistles through the hatch. There's another room under this one.Lines1A flash of a young boy, feet dangling, bracing for a needle in a cold office.Lines1A glistening, fungal tapestry spreads quietly.Lines1A grey, gelatinous slime thrives at the bottom of the rusted pails.Lines1A low hiss emits from the tank, sets your teeth on edge.Lines1A picture of a great steel chariot, signed by the hands that built it.Lines1A precision drill glints in the surgical light.Lines1A punch-card scanner. The screen would've shown on-site personnel.Lines1A reading pile in three languages. Mostly about psychic phenomena.Lines1A sheet of thick paper lies on the floor, folded in half and partially covered by shadow.Lines44A short clamber down to the loamy shore.Lines1A small vessel that once tried to fill the emptiness with songs.Lines1A smear of dirt bisects your reflection. Both halves equally on edge.Lines1A steel rod jammed between the blades. Death by sabotage.Lines1A street shrine with no street.Lines1A swarm of tiny, nearly invisible crabs skitter over rebar and concrete.Lines1A theatre of inorganic decay.Lines1A thin crust of salt and jet fuel.Lines1A typed page lies upside-down in a stack of similarly formatted files. The cover reads: 'Remote Viewing Testimonial N.28'.Lines71A welder's mask with few burn marks.Lines1A wheel once turned to perform kinetic miracles.Lines1A whiff of old ammonia. Still burns the throat.Lines1A workman's hammock, for hidden naps.Lines1A Zatiros-3 unit -- manufactured in Tsun's Arc, not Portofiro.Lines1Ahead, the electric hum and rhythmic clatter of an aero-tram station.Lines5All around, shadows leer, studying you with cold attention.Lines1Already picked over for the good bits.Lines1An attempt at salvage gone horribly wrong.Lines1An identification plate above the door has been pried off.Lines1Another inscrutable acronym. What could it mean?Lines1Beneath the shelves, rails run parallel -- part of a mobile racking system.Lines1BUILT ON FALSEHOODS, DESTINED TO CRUMBLE.Lines1Buried. Dead.Lines1Cargo and supplies left where they fell.Lines1Cellulose-fat silverfish scatter as you approach.Lines1Cheap aluminium steps collapsed under their own weight.Lines1Chunky, sticky buttons. Relics of a tactile world filled with pleasant clacks.Lines1Clinks and chuckles echoing. Two shadows toasting to the abyss.Lines1Clinks, fading quickly. A small life fleeing your alien presence.Lines1Collapse imminent.Lines1Copper and steel decay.Lines1Cracked screens, shattered keys. Someone wanted this thing dead.Lines1Creeping ivy, the same variety that climbed your first apartment in Kohila.Lines1Damp cardboard. 'FLOOR SEALED', badly scribbled over.Lines1Dated: 76. We were teens. Life loomed. And now, we're here.Lines1Detritus everywhere. Watch your step.Lines1Distance disappearing into darkness.Lines1Down below, a viscous carpet of grey-green undulates softly.Lines1Dozens of personnel files, the specifics redacted with a roller-stamp.Lines1Dried white paint -- matte. Good for covering up steel.Lines1Dustless below the tarp, awaiting an unveiling that will never come.Lines1Easier to write off the loss than attempt to recover it.Lines1Empty OXEN Bocks bottles. Label says they expire in two years.Lines1Encrypted notes. Each paragraph uses its own cypher-type -- impressive.Lines1Even the chair gäng's been broken up.Lines1FAILURES OF INFRASTRUCTURE EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK.Lines1Far above, past the concrete, the wind carries the sweet sting of salt and crushed grass.Lines1Fat residue on old cardboard.Lines1Feel the weight of those papers. It's all in there, the culmination to this madness.Lines1Flimsy latch on that drawer. Wouldn't be hard to pop.Lines1For the first time in years, no one is watching you.Lines1Forgotten in the shadow of the satellite.Lines1Fragments of an unrealised geometry. They call to you.Lines1Gouge marks. These buttons were pried out and re-seated many times.Lines1Great trees planted decades before the space program.Lines1Handwritten reports, all ear-marked. Lonely nights down here.Lines1Heavy-duty chemical signatures. Not for partying.Lines1High-clearance badge request for 'Tiago Silva'. Dated 76.Lines1High-contrast paint, indicating sub-level FOUR.Lines1Industrial drainage. It'll flush away whatever drips through the floor.Lines1Ink on metal: 'BUTANE', and a column of dates. Last refilled three days ago.Lines1Intimidating structures, humbled in their prime.Lines1It all happens in milliseconds. A sharp blow to your elbow, the flashlight flying out of your grasp...Lines160It may be able to take your weight.Lines1It rains rust when the wind picks up.Lines1Itchy.Lines1Its function long forgotten, the mysterious lever calls out to be used.Lines1Jump.Lines1Landslide. Unstable foundations.Lines1Large glass eyes, milky with cataracts, stare back.Lines1Last inspected: 77. The machine-spirit long departed.Lines1Like the stem of a wilting tulip, the girder bends towards the pit.Lines1Lineworker gloves, swollen and cracked. Signs of heavy kerosene exposure.Lines1Looks dirty, but the seams are spotless. That suit's inspected regularly.Lines1M.I.H.O.'s report on inter-matter phasing is still there, and still tempting.Lines67Metal shudders and groans beneath your feet, reverberating downwards.Lines23Might be worth popping this thing open, yeah?Lines1Mind the gap.Lines1Most demolition here was intentional, but this was time's wrecking ball.Lines1Nature is reclaiming this place -- watch for things that bite.Lines1Needles in the red.Lines1New wires cleanly spliced into old circuitry. Days, maybe weeks of work.Lines1Nitrogen, hastily discarded.Lines1No wall lasts forever when built against the tide.Lines1Old metal groans into the void. Acoustics suggest a fifty metre drop.Lines1One more phone, one more voice.Lines561Orders to purge records 'by end of day.'Lines1Phosphor etched across the screen: a spectral rocket, all systems clear.Lines1Power. Still humming.Lines1Project AUTONOMÍA's thirst for fuel was near-unquenchable.Lines1Propellant cylinders. The warning signs are in Mircean.Lines1Reminds you of your year 8 school trip to the Landau oil refinery.Lines1Remnants of sky-blue paint on the metal dome.Lines1Repurposed conference table, its legs sawn. The 'mattress' is industrial foam.Lines1Revolving security guards lived here in shifts.Lines1Rotanev's shrine sits undisturbed under its worn wooden awning.Lines79Rust halfway through devouring the support beams.Lines1Safety guidelines for contractors, stamped by a Portofiran office.Lines1Sandstone. This island was once an ancient seabed.Lines1Scattered star stickers, edges curled, cling to the EXIT sign.Lines1Screens covered in black tape. No chance of reflection.Lines1Scribbled under a warning sign: 'CHECK PRESSURES HOURLY.'Lines1Sheared metal, barely hanging on.Lines1Shrapnel everywhere.Lines1Signals from across space, lost forever with no receiver.Lines1Small animals skitter through the pipes overhead.Lines1Small white and blue feathers, a few droppings. Birds made a home.Lines1Soft coos echo through the pipes; pigeons are nesting inside.Lines1Some serious protection gloves were left here.Lines1Stashed rations. Frantic hoarding against an endless winter.Lines1Steel levers, frozen mid-pull.Lines1Straps with steel ratchets. No getting out of that.Lines1Surgical lights -- modern ones.Lines1Tally marks -- rations and calories. Survival calculated by the month.Lines1Teal drapes hang still, remembering old stains -- and bracing for ones to come.Lines1Tetanus waiting to happen.Lines1The act of trespassing fills you with smug satisfaction.Lines1The apparatus this controlled no longer exists.Lines1The arteries of this forgotten machine.Lines1The bottom of the boat is filled with abalone shells.Lines1The control unit idles in its cradle, lights softened to a tired glow.Lines23The glint of a glass bottle -- miraculously unbroken.Lines1The groundwater here was contaminated a long time ago.Lines1The huffing stranger breaks into a smile as he notices you.Lines1The ladder disappears into bushy hillside.Lines1The marriage of organic and inorganic.Lines1The mould's tendrils rise gently as you approach.Lines123The open hatch beckons.Lines1The plank's a recent addition, no trace of rot.Lines1The platform was built to accommodate a long-absent crowd of commuters.Lines1The ration pack crinkles as you turn it over.Lines100The safety straps failed in their assignment.Lines1The skyline of Portofiro's crescent coast looms across the bay.Lines1The smell of a box opened after decades, the air of another age trapped inside.Lines1The structure here is buckling, walkway's unstable overhead.Lines1The tabletop is splattered with the drying blood of your old friend.Lines537The tarp clings to the railing, stiff with long-dried oil stains.Lines1The wind in the juniper smells like early spring.Lines1There is nothing more for you here.Lines23They must have assembled the pipes here.Lines1Thick cables -- an addition. Their outer sheath screams 'high voltage'.Lines1Thin plates of metal buckle and wurble with the wind.Lines1This complex stretches as far under the hillside as it does over it.Lines1This is what remains of the Portofiro's bright futurist mania.Lines1This tank's not fuel. It's liquid oxygen.Lines1Three engineers clustered on the viewing platform, staring into the depths below.Lines1Too many pipes to keep track of, serpentine, cold.Lines1Under the overturned hull, a perfect hiding spot...Lines1Upside down, message forgotten.Lines1Waste oil or something worse. Don't touch.Lines1Water echoes in the pipes.Lines1Water gurgles somewhere below, punctuated by high-voltage crackles.Lines1Water through a pipe, four levels down. Human activity.Lines1Whatever light that's slipped in from above has nearly drained away.Lines108Where do they all go?Lines1Whoever tried to clean up had to leave in a rush.Lines1Wild rabbits watch from the dry shrubs as you pass by.Lines1You approach Shelves B and C once more.Lines49You can't see much at all. You need a light.Lines1You face Shelf G once more.Lines108You look for shapes behind the glass -- nothing.Lines1You return to the faded billboard.Lines67You return to the shelves.Lines172Zoning permits, eviction logs -- dated 75. A taxonomy of the Pitol Tract's erasure.Lines1My accountContribute
