You open the Renotel distribution panel once more. After pressing the ON button, you push the Voskol Auto-Negotiator's cord into the…

You open the Renotel distribution panel once more. After pressing the ON button, you push the Voskol Auto-Negotiator's cord into the terminal's serial port as before.

Why is there a small angry line blinking at me?

That's a text cursor. It's waiting for your input.

When you type in a sequence of characters it recognises as a command, the machine will react.

What do I do with this thing?

The artery before you connects to every device connected to the Renotel wireless network.

With any luck, it can show you the signal that goes directly to the prisoner's intercom.

But how to get this thing working?

The text cursor highlights the blank space where your commands should go.

You should be able to pull up a directory of all network terminals. Try 'DIRECTORY' or 'NETWORK'.

Ask it?

This is not the first time you've hacked into a phone terminal, though it is the first time you haven't been able to delegate the task to asset RADIAN.

Would be good to have Ramses here.

"Machines are simple, Hersh. You've just got to know what commands to give them and they do the rest for you."

RADIAN's fingers danced, each input a new incantation. The ember of his blunt pulsing with every keystroke. A sorcerer within his haze.

He was great at this shit.

There was one piece of advice you remember him giving you for times like these.

"If you ever get stuck, you do what you do when among human company -- ask for 'help', you can literally type it in."

I'll figure it out.

For better or for worse, you'll have to. But there is one piece of advice you remember RADIAN giving to you for times like this.

Help, somebody!

The machine is indifferent to your pleas. Luckily, there is one piece of advice you remember RADIAN giving you for times like this.

I must have picked up something from the old days.

With the notable exception of the Miracle Line, which remains on a wired connection.

It could conceivably let you tap into the Miracle Line.

Input the number you found on the Miracle Line.

▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ > ERROR CODE: 204-B -- INCORRECT PERMISSIONS. ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒

> TYPE INFO FOR ADDITIONAL DETAILS.

Don't you 'incorrect permissions' me. (Type the serial again.)

▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ > ERROR CODE: 204-B -- INCORRECT PERMISSIONS. ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒

Type INFO.

[INFO] IDENTIFIER TYPE: LANDLINE. [INFO] PLEASE DIRECT REQUEST TO A TERMINAL WITH LANDLINE DATABASE ACCESS.

Where is that?

The terminal groans with mechanical effort.

Type 'LOCATE'

[INFO] PARSING REQUEST...

[INFO] PLEASE PROCEED TO NODE 7-B (SECTOR: PA.)

There is only one place in Portofiro that PA could be referring to -- Party Alley.

Right, the old Party Alley terminal.

The machine hums, like a tired old man trying to stay alert.

I'm getting so good at computing.

The terminal's screen flickers wearily.

Good. Let's move on.

Fans inside the terminal whir a wheezing tune.

There must be a wired access terminal in Party Alley then.

Type 'HELP'.

Three possible inputs, cold and toneless, flicker up on the screen:

1. NETWORK 2. DIAGNOSTICS 3. QUIT

NETWORK should get you the list. Then it's just a matter of finding what you're looking for.

QUIT, definitely quit.

Type 'DIRECTORY'.

ERROR: 'DIRECTORY' IS NOT A RECOGNISED COMMAND.

Type 'NETWORK'.

The matrix of lines and pixels representing the city ripples out in front of you once more.

Where am I?

You're one of the blinking pixels. That much is clear. Which one, though...

There -- close to the centre, amid the hundreds of black squares, there is a single asterisk, blinking slowly. It can only be the Renotel Artery's location.

The intercom's signal is only a few blocks away.

The mess of black squares swims before your eyes. You have no idea.

What's that empty-looking area to the north?

You look to a region of the map where only a few scattered pixels blink amid stretches of empty screen.

Easy. The Pitol Tract -- an industrial wasteland devoid of people or signals.

When Nestor's space program was abandoned, so was the Tract.

Former Supreme Leader Nestor cleared out an entire neighborhood to build the hub of Portofiro's space program 30 years ago. When the program was abandoned, so was the Tract.

Ocean, probably?

What's the big tangle here in the middle?

The densely-populated heart of the city, where terminals pile on top of each other, dozens to a square metre.

Specifically the dual centres of Bootleg Bazaar and Party Alley, immediately surrounding you.

Locate the prisoner's intercom.

In a map with no contours, you have to read the negative space.

There, cutting right through the middle of the most densely populated are, the canal below the Quisach bridge shows up as a visible gash in the network.

And so that line crossing through it is the bridge...

Which spills onto the roundabout, on the side of which lies the secret jail.

Alternative wording

Which spills onto the roundabout, on the side of which lies the magazine office.

There. Your eyes alight on a cluster of pixels -- three terminals, to be exact. That must be the secret jail, so... the terminal at the lowest point, marked red, must be the intercom.

Alternative wording

There. Your eyes alight on a cluster of pixels -- three terminals, to be exact. That must be the magazine office, so... the terminal at the lowest point, marked red, must be the intercom.

"Got you."

No doubt. That's the place.

Select it.

Drives jolt awake. The pixels blink out of existence and the map dissolves, leaving only the terminal you selected.

▂▃▅▇█▓█▇▅▃▂ NETWORK CONFIGURATION: UPDATING...

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø SYNCHRONISING SIGNAL WITH DEVICE... °º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø

UPDATE: SUCCESSFUL. ><(((('> ><(((('> ><(((('> WELCOME TO RENOTEL CONTROL V1.2 ©87 RENOTEL

You should now be able to connect to the prisoner's intercom directly from any payphone in the city.

» INPUT EXTERNAL DEVICE TO CONTINUE...

Hook up the Voskol Auto-Negotiator.

You push the device's cord into the old terminal's serial port. The built-in adapter settles in with a pleasant click.

Beneath the city's murmurs, the soft rustle of read/write heads gliding across a disk.

DEVICE INPUT ACCEPTED ►►►►►►►►►►►►► WELCOME: RENOTEL EMPLOYEE ☺︎

Fuck.

You've found the intercom. Hooking up to it is a different matter.

The Renotel technician had such a device -- the Voskol Auto-Negotiator. Maybe he'll let you borrow it.

The Renotel technician had a device that did exactly that. Maybe he'll let you borrow it.

That Renotel technician you met earlier was carrying a device. Must be that.

Must be a security measure. A Renotel employee could get you through -- or, at least, their tools could...

What device?

It doesn't specify.

The secret jail is just south of that...

Alternative wording

The magazine office is just south of that...

You try to establish some connection between the grey abyss of pixels in front of you, and the three dimensional city around you.

You're looking for an intercom, not a phone -- there must be something that differentiates them.

Take it all in at once.

Your eyes blur as the entire city's electronic tissue passes in front of them. Eventually, you are able to focus on three individual points -- all marked by a single red pixel.

Which one is it?

You have no way of telling.

Choose all three.

Look for misfits in the system.

Your eyes automatically focus on three individual points. All are marked by a single red pixel among a sea of greens and yellows.

You might as well be staring at the remains of coffee at the bottom of a cup.

Enough for now. (Go back.)

LOADING NETWORK... ▂▃▅▇█▓█▇▅▃▂

Pixels wink in and out of existence before slowly etching themselves into something larger: a chaos of blinking black squares, apparently random and yet cohering into a shape that stirs something in your mind...

Whoa.

Before you, Portofiro's wireless network, a constellation of flickering nodes floating in a landless void.

A pointillistic map of the island, drawn in phone terminals.

Dormant stars waiting for ignition.

What am I looking at?

Synchronise the Voskol Auto Negotiator with the prisoner's intercom.

Synchronise the Voskol Auto Negotiator with the signals you found.

Type 'DIAGNOSTICS'.

RENOTEL DIAGNOSTICS ® IS INTENDED FOR OFFICIAL PERSONNEL ONLY. DEVICE INPUT ACCEPTED ►►►►►►►►►►►►► WELCOME: RENOTEL EMPLOYEE ☺︎

EXAMINING SYSTEM... ▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩▩ THIS MAY TAKE A FEW MINUTES.

Be patient.

Seconds turn into minutes as you watch the dots blinking on the monitor. It's not clear if the machine is doing anything at all.

It's a background process. Users wouldn't be able to keep up if it was foregrounded.

After what seems like a small eternity, the machine beeps and coughs up a brief report:

SYSTEM: 98.2% ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ > 1 CRITICAL ERROR: A DEVICE HAS A CONFIGURATION PROBLEM THAT PREVENTS IT FROM WORKING PROPERLY.

Must be the faulty intercom.

Better tell the technician about this.

You could, or...

Keep it to yourself. That way, no one will think to fix it.

The issue will persist, and in turn, you'll continue to be able to talk to the prisoner.

The issue will persist, and in turn, you should be able to talk to the prisoner from the outside.

Guess there's no one to tell about this anymore.

No one needs to know about this.

"Hurry up!" (Mash the keyboard.)

The dots on the monitor continue to blink, unbothered.

"Obey me." (Poke the screen.)

Your finger comes into contact with thick glass. Hard, but not cold. A solid barrier between you and the machine world.

Nothing you do can interrupt the mechanised processes going on unseen.

Guess I'll have to wait...

Give in to machine time. (Wait.)

Seconds turn into minutes as you watch the monitor, unchanging. It's not clear if the machine is doing anything at all.

RENOTEL DIAGNOSTICS ® IS INTENDED FOR OFFICIAL PERSONNEL ONLY. » INPUT EXTERNAL DEVICE TO CONTINUE...

Plug in the Voskol Auto-Negotiator.

DEVICE INPUT ACCEPTED ►►►►►►►►►►►►► WELCOME: RENOTEL EMPLOYEE ☺︎

Nah, I'm not doing this now. (Go back.)

The system continues waiting for a set amount of time before resetting to its default screen.

The Renotel technician had such a device -- the Voskol Auto-Negotiator. Maybe he'll let you borrow it.

The Renotel technician had a device that did exactly that. Maybe he'll let you borrow it.

That Renotel technician you met earlier was carrying a device. Must be that.

Must be a security measure. A Renotel employee could get you through -- or, at least, their tools could...

Type 'QUIT'.

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø ...GOODBYE... °º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø

I'll come back to this later. [Leave.]

You step away from the distribution box.

You open the Renotel distribution panel once more. Pressing the ON button sees the old terminal coax itself awake once again.

The sticker on the panel reads, 'PROPRIEDADE DE RENOTEL'. In the centre, the company's familiar dolphin mascot grins at you.

Renotel. A diversified communications company local to the state of Portofiro. Immediately recognisable by its dolphin logo.

Open the panel.

Inside, you find a dirt-covered computer terminal. Above the gridwork of corroded wires, a sleek cable cuts a path toward the antenna.

A wound in the city's flesh. An orifice where the metal veins that twist and knot below your feet are exposed for a moment.

Press the old terminal's ON/OFF button.

The ancient terminal groans in response.

Relays clack in a series of deep, satisfying clicks -- like pistol chambers locking into place.

SYSTEM WAKING... ▂▃▅▇█▓█▇▅▃▂

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø ...PLEASE WAIT... °º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø

><(((('> ><(((('> ><(((('> WELCOME TO RENOTEL CONTROL V1.2! ©87 RENOTEL ENTER COMMAND >_

Connect with the machine, tap into the invisible substructure of the city.

I'll come back later. [Leave.]

You step away from the terminal.

Leave it alone.

The sticker on the panel reads, 'PROPRIEDADE DE RENOTEL'. In the centre, the company's dolphin mascot grins at you.