Sugarcane

When you are here with me\nthis [[room]] has no more walls\nbut trees\ninfinite trees.\nWhen you are here near me\nthis purple ceiling,\nno, it doesn't exist anymore.\n-Il Cielo in una Stanza

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/fire.png]] \n\nthe ground is hot\n\nthe air is hot\n\nall roads lead to [[fire|rim]]

They ask all kinds of questions at the clinic.\n\n"Have you had unprotected sex in the last year?" You shave a couple months off and say no.\n\n"Have you ever had unprotected sex?"\n\n"Ever?"\n\n"Ever."\n\n"One time. A long time ago." Two times with two different people. You try not to think about it. You were drunk. No diseases should be allowed to transmit past that blurry wall of the night before.\n\n"Have you ever used a needle to inject street drugs?" No.\n\n"Have you ever used an implant socket for an unusual purpose?"\n\nYou hesitate too long to say no. You mumble something about sharing eye-vids with other people.\n\n"That's fine, we're not here to talk about that. Pirating shouldn't transmit any diseases. I'm talking mainly about insertion of unauthorized devices or fluids." She looks at you with a sympathetic expression. "Adapter fluid can transmit various STDs including HIV. I hope you know that."\n\n"I [[know]]."\n\nYou met Vulne shortly after that and you never came back for your follow-up appointment.

bedroom can mean a lot of things but to you it's\n\nmostly empty, with dirty clothes here and there, glint of empty vials like translucent fangs, and a [[mattress|use]] in the corner

Looking back it seems stupid to think he'd just give you the vial, even at gunpoint. Drug mule messes up a shipment, no way they get another chance. Lucky if they get to walk away at all.\n\nHe was just trying to sustain his habit. Kind of like you, except you seem to end up hurting more [[people|away]].

ash kicks up in your face and you try to drag it away. sticky like webbing and you keep feeling like you can't see everything that's in front of your eyes.\n\nthings are marching past. you feel horrified, like you're just a mute stone melting into the waste. you feel compelled to say something but the heat is too loud. there is a way to talk in this place but you are incapable of understanding how. something like a gaze, something like language that was forecast a long time ago and now unfolds at its own pace and if you aren't written into the script, you can never [[speak]].\n\n

The fumes of the squam turd are poisonous. Sharp things keep them from landing in human [[colonies|withdrawal]].

everything is deep\n\nshe stands up and spins around. you know she's loving the slow whirl\n\nyou're on the bed and she's tilting your legs back until they're over your head and she's grinning and snaking her tongue down to lap between your legs and you didn't know how wet you were until she came away [[dripping]]

History.prototype.display=function(d,b,a){var c=tale.get(d);this.history.unshift({passage:c,variables:clone(this.history[0].variables)});\nvar e=c.render();e.style.visibility="visible";if(a!="offscreen"){var p=$("passages");\nfor(var i=0;i<p.childNodes.length;i+=1){var q=p.childNodes[ i ];q.classList.add("transition-out");\nsetTimeout(function(){p.removeChild(q);},1000);}e.classList.add("transition-in");\nsetTimeout(function(){e.classList.remove("transition-in");},1);p.appendChild(e);}if((a=="quietly")||(a=="offscreen")){e.style.visibility="visible";\n} console.log(tale);\n console.log(state);return e;};

The Sky in the Room

delicate rings rotating, clicking\n\nsocket fluid speckles your fingers as she dilates reflexively at your touch\n\nhold on i'm not in yet\n\nshe's looking back and you catch the outline of her face in the dim light, she looks excited\n\nthe trick is lining the vial grooves up with the rings\n\nyou listen to the click like a safecracker\n\nand watch the fluid drain and fill her with [[green|green2]]

[[...|later]]

crawl bed crying lost darkness familiar breathe\n\nshe wraps her arms around you\n\nshe gets you a glass of water\n\nshe holds you tighter than the world's hurting you\n\nwhat's [[wrong]], she says, and you know she knows but she's letting you tell it your way

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/glass2.png]]\n\nYou've been crashing through this window for hours. Languid shards drift glacially past your face, and sometimes into your face.\n\nDown the hallway you see shadows, shadows, and Koner running away from you.\n\n{Tachypsychia aperture: [[100%>0%]]}

you crawl out of bed blindly, crying and drooling blood you're lost in the darkness and nothing seems familiar you can't breathe\n\n[[she|she2]] wraps her arms around you

everything has been living down here for a long time.\n\n[[they're]] very old and you keep asking them about other human beings

She's slurping instant noodles, faint smear of packet [[flavoring]] on her upper lip.\n\nYou waggle the vial triumphantly. She puts the bowl down. The [[bedroom]] door stands between the two of you.

She scoots around and pulls her shirt off, lime-green tee flung to the side and all this bare flesh for you to dig your fingers into.\n\n"You playing with my back all night or you got something for me?"\n\nYou shake your head. You're in slow time, she's still in fast time. Not fair to keep her waiting. You want to be so close to Vulne, wavelength convergence, perfect harmony, linked in joy or sorrow. You're so stupid right now that you have to follow the [[landmarks]] on her back just to find her socket.

they're talking (emitting information) about how no one can go back to the surface once they've come down here.\n\nyou don't try to go back to the surface. you sense that you can't. you feel like you could have gone back if you hadn't spent so much time down here. you keep trying to find the other humans. if you could just find someone else to spend this time with, someone to talk to.\n\nthis seems to last [[forever|out]]

You've been growing your [[cunt|dripping]] out for a week now with Acclimate bio-plugs. You like the way it nibbles at your fingers. Pissing is messy unless you relax, but you've been getting better about that. It's weird having something in your body that serves as such a visible sign of anxiety. An anemone between your legs changing color and size with fear, arousal, relaxation. Right now it's glowing and hungry and flowing.

[[She]] always dumps the flavor packet in one big clump and doesn't even stir it around, drives you crazy. You end up with 80 percent bland noodles and 20 percent overpowering salty spiciness, how does that make sense?

{Time 1:1}\n\nGlass crunches underfoot. Your face glitters in the low light with embedded splinters. You're drawing your [[gun]] to shoot Koner.

The word sticks in your throat. [[Koner|k111]], [[Koner|k222]], [[Koner|k333]].\n\nYou can't stop thinking about Koner.

and your gun was\n\nthe [[pink gun]]\n\nthe [[blue gun]]\n\nthe [[green gun]]

The word sticks in your throat. [[Koner|k11]], [[Koner|k22]], Koner.\n\nYou blink and walk [[away]].

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/colony.png]] \n\nYou find the door and leave this bad scene behind and you're in the city and you feel anonymous again, gun down the back of your waistband and bloody hands bunched up in your jacket sleeves. \n\nCatwalks span the void as hive [[sewers|effluence]] roar, painting the chasms beneath your feet green with the accumulated filth of thousands. Barbed wire, nails, and needles [[encrust]] every surface that isn't for walking.\n\nYou need to [[piss]].

<<set $surgeryScope = "arms">>\n<<display "extraction">>

As she comes her claws snap open and fill the flesh of your back. She arches like she's screaming into the ceiling but no sound comes out. The immensity of her messy haired orgasm, with roots in you, sucking up burning water.\n\n[[deep]]

you slide up the bed and guide her inside your [[cunt]]\n\nyou suck on your fingers and start fingering her [[anus]]

You crawl out of bed blindly, crying and drooling blood. You're lost in the darkness and nothing seems [[familiar]]. You can't breathe.

She gently twists the vial down your socket and the tension in your body is fading like static to a clear station. You stop grinding your teeth. This is really good product, she's saying, or maybe you're thinking it. You hope she's saying it, things are just more real coming from other people, aren't they? Yeah it's so [[green]] you say, and you start laughing.

you're in the darkness\n\nyou can't [[move]]

You feel your way through the apartment. Someone's watching from the bedroom. Too scared to come out. Makes sense, what with you waving a gun out here and digging around inside a guy. You feel the absurd urge to apologize to whoever lives here, to assert your essential goodness. You don't usually do this kind of thing, this isn't you at all.\n\nBut soaked in blood and sweat and stinking with three days of [[withdrawal]], you don't think that would sound convincing.

A year later he was running vials and you were [[stealing|Sorry.2]] vials and this never would have happened if you hadn't been close enough to know he was holding in the first place.

{Extraction TRUE}\n{Scope: <<print $surgeryScope>>}\n{Incision Power: <<print $incisionPower>>}

You duck into the humid caverns above the sewage core and hike up the nearest hill of garbage in search of privacy. No boozers, users, floppers, or knifejobs in immediate sight, might as well fucking drop your pants.\n\nThe instant you squat a hot jet of piss sprays from between your legs. Unnnnnnnngghhhhhh. You glare at the curious squambirds cooing and jerking in circles around you.\n\nYour piss seeps down the hillside, bubbling up where it meets crests of [[trash]]<<if $weapon eq "green gun">>, chlorophyll green from the Orthodoxer. Wet plant fragrance wafts up and gets you thinking dirty thoughts about flowers. It'll pass.<<else>>.<<endif>>

You remember [[Koner|Sorry.2]] talking about running vials through Gate IX. You felt weird when he was discussing it--that old saying, fish don't talk about the river. You just wanted to swim and not think about where it came from. He asked if you wanted to come in with him, he knew a cousin who knew people. Fuck that, you said. I'm quitting soon anyways. The disdain of the user for the user. You both knew you were lying. But he just lit a cigarette and said, that's cool. I'm happy for you.

crawl bed crying drooling blood lost darkness familiar breathe\n\nshe wraps her arms around you\n\nshe gets you a glass of water\n\nshe holds you tighter than the world's [[hurting]] you

base of her [[spine|landmarks]], rubbing her coccyx\n\nslope of her [[hips]], curving out and into you

you crawl out bed blindly crying drooling blood you're lost darkness nothing seems familiar you can't breathe\n\nshe wraps her arms around you\n\nshe gets you a glass of [[water]]

<<set $surgeryScope = "thighs">>\n<<display "extraction">>

The faucet rattles and you let the water run from brown to clear. You watch Koner until the glass gets heavy in your hand and you bring it over and feed him water until he coughs. You put the cup down by his side and prop him up against the couch.\n\n[[Sorry.]] [["Sorry".|sorry2]]

<<silently>>\n<<if $incisionPower eq "100%">>\n<<set $incisionPower = "125%">>\n<<set $konerDead = true>>\n<<endif>>\n<<if $incisionPower eq "75%">>\n<<set $incisionPower = "100%">>\n<<endif>>\n<<if $incisionPower eq "50%">>\n<<set $incisionPower = "75%">>\n<<endif>>\n<<endsilently>>\n<<display "extraction">>

Porpentine

she gets [[bigger|sex2]] in your mouth

you follow them so you aren't alone in the waste. you feel like losing sight of those blurred dark figures would mean being lost forever in the vastness, unable to reference or locate anything in the oppressive dust. you are desperate with chasing them, but afraid to get too close. you keep thinking you've lost them and then they're in [[front|them]] of you again.

You dilate your spine [[socket]]. Always paranoid about all this dust and shit in the air. Getting a deep socket infection, clawing at it like some street junky and no money for a technician's fee and [[who'd]] touch this warranty voided hole in the first place, all scraped up, grooved, notched with careless, trembling insertions.

\n\nshe wraps her arms around you\n\nshe gets you a glass of water\n\nshe holds you tighter than the world's hurting you\n\nwhat's wrong, she says, and you know she knows but she's letting you tell it your way\n\nand in her arms you can't recall\n\nand against her arms the world [[breaks|http://youtu.be/jFRINHt-7Qg]]\n\n[[*]]

<<display "surgery status">>\n----\n<<if $surgeryScope eq "125%">>{Incision Power: MAXIMUM POWER}<<else>>{Incision Power: [[increase power]]}<<endif>>\n<<if $surgeryScope neq "arms">>{Scope: [[Arms]]}<<endif>><<if $surgeryScope neq "thighs">>{Scope: [[Thighs]]}<<endif>><<if $surgeryScope neq "abdomen">>{Scope: [[Abdomen]]}<<endif>>\n----\nHis flesh parts under your fingers, keratin scalpels drawing furrows in likely hiding places. Lunular micro-cannisters secrete painkillers--don't want to set off his dead man's switch.\n\n<<display "Incise">>

The word sticks in your throat. [[Koner|k1]], Koner, Koner.\n\nYou don't think about Koner. You walk [[away]].

she wiggles and slides down your [[finger|orgasm]]

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/cunt.png]]\n\nwhat a great day to have a [[cunt|cunt0]] you say\n\nlook at you all magnanimous she says\n\nyou pretend to put your cunt away in mock disapproval and she [[laughs]]

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/pinkgun.png]] \n\nPink Gun\n\nTranslucent clit sights\n\nNerve trigger\n\nTwin clitoral refraction beams\n\nPulsing stroke reload (lateral labia mechanism)\n\n[[no|gun]] [[yeah|drill]]\n\n<<set $weapon = "pink gun">>

she dips between your legs and you tighten up, smirking with each [[gasp|orgasm]]

//Sockets are recommended for interface with:\n[[-video, text, audio]]//

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/thatguy.png]]\n\nIt points to [[something]] that won't stop eating green-white-red meat on the ground, meat that's all gnarled and twisted up and doughy.

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/glass.png]]\n\nYou've been crashing through this window for hours. Languid shards drift glacially past your face, and sometimes into your face.\n\nDown the hallway you see shadows, shadows, and [[someone]] running away from you.

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/girlcock.png]] \n\nyou wrap your [[tongue]] around her girlcock\n\nyou grasp her girlcock and start [[rubbing]]\n

<<silently>>\n<<set $incisionPower = "50%">>\n<<set $surgeryScope = "arms">>\n<<set $konerDead = false>>\n<<endsilently>>\n<<if $weapon eq "blue gun">>Bleakness leaps from the barrel bringing the sensation of freezing cold with all the attendant genetic fear of frostbite and deprivation.\n\nStraddling his psychosomatically frozen body you prepare for [[extraction]].<<endif>>\n<<if $weapon eq "pink gun">>You flick the trigger and the gun tightens, spasmodic spurts of pink light drilling into Koner's back. He orgasms to the ground, twitching in relentless priapism. He's screaming at this long-range violation, he's clutching at his swelling crotch.\n\nStraddling his forevercumming body you prepare for [[extraction]].<<endif>>\n<<if $weapon eq "green gun">>You jerk the second trigger for the long shot and immediately feel like the executioner who didn't get the sponge wet. The solar shot burns his back up with diffused heat instead of forming a clean stinging bolt like you've seen the riot police do. Whispering fuckfuckfuck you check the battery--wilted.\n\nYou hold the gun to his head as you prepare for [[extraction]]. Tendrils of gunvine caress his face, oozing antipsychotic sap.<<endif>>

you go faster and [[faster|sex2]] until she's biting her lip and her balls are high and tight

you tear down her underwear with your toes and her girlcock springs free\n\ni want a taste of that but i can't get...all the way over there, you're saying with a smile\n\nshe crawls up your [[body|sex1]] leaving a trail of pearlescent slime along your legs and hips and belly and she's trying to find a way into your head through the haze

they turn around and show you what they have.\n\nhow could this have come [[out]] of the fire

As she comes her claws snap open and fill the flesh of your back. She cranes back like she's screaming into the ceiling but no sound comes out. The immensity of her messy haired orgasm, with roots in you, sucking up burning water.\n\ndeep [[sigh|dot]]

body:not([data-tags*=t8n]) div.transition-in {\n position:absolute;\n opacity:0;\n}\nbody:not([data-tags*=t8n]) div.passage {\n transition:0.1s linear;\n -webkit-transition: 0.1s linear;\n}\nbody:not([data-tags*=t8n]) div.transition-out {\n position:absolute;\n opacity:0;\n}\n\nbody[data-tags~=t8n-blurmerge] .transition-in {\n color:transparent;\n text-shadow: #fff -4em 0 1em, #fff 4em 0 1em;\n position:absolute;\n}\nbody[data-tags~=t8n-blurmerge] .passage:not(.transition-out) {\n transition: 1s;\n -webkit-transition: 1s;\n}\nbody[data-tags~=t8n-blurmerge] .transition-out {\n opacity:0;\n position:absolute;\n}\n\nbody[data-tags~=t8n-scrollup] .transition-in {\n opacity:0;\n transform: translate(0,-3rem);\n -webkit-transform: translate(0,-3rem);\n position:absolute;\n}\nbody[data-tags~=t8n-scrollup] .passage {\n transition: 1s;\n -webkit-transition: 1s;\n}\nbody[data-tags~=t8n-scrollup] .transition-out {\n opacity:0;\n transform: translate(0,3rem);\n -webkit-transform: translate(0,3rem);\n position:absolute;\n}

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/fire2.png]] \n\ndark figures stand by the burning rim. they're helping things come out of the fire.\n\nyou get the sense of tunnels just below the sand, tunnels roofed in plastic sheeting. you fear the suffocating heat of those tunnels.\n\nthe [[tunnels]]\n\nstand [[still]]

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/thisguy.png]]\n\nIt drags itself up the wall into a purple sheath. What are you, a pipe, you joke. Nothing seems to talk to you but always past you, always over your [[shoulder]].

Your nostrils drink in the briney, earthy, ammoniac scent. Love or hate, one must acknowledge the immensity of such fluids which represent the combined efforts of so [[many|withdrawal]].

pale blue bra strap\n\nher shoulder blades contract and you're staring into her [[hole]]

//Sockets are recommended for interface with:\n-video, text, audio\n[[-approved retinal and neurological implants]]//

black [[mole]] under her shoulder blade\n\nspine [[bumps]]

<<set $surgeryScope = "abdomen">>\n<<display "extraction">>

You remember [[Koner|Sorry.1]] talking about running vials through Gate IX. You felt weird when he was discussing it--that old saying, fish don't talk about the river. You just wanted to swim and not think about where it came from. He asked if you wanted to come in with him, he knew a cousin who knew people. Fuck that, you said. I'm quitting soon anyways. The disdain of the user for the user. You both knew you were lying. But he just lit a cigarette and said, that's cool. I'm happy for you.

"Sorry." Your empty apology fills the room like the smell of shit.\n\nKoner's eyes focus for a second. You look [[away]], not knowing if he's angry or in shock or just disappointed, and the last one would be the worst.

City lights are going out by the time you get back to [[Apartment 103C|She]]. You've checked the vial in your pocket a couple hundred times along the way, worrying each time that the act of checking will make you look suspicious or maybe dislodge it from your pocket, and the anxiety always sets you checking again.

you know the plastic has hot sand on it so you go very carefully through the tunnel. this seems to take you deeper underground. you try to walk back but you can't look up for some reason. you can't tell how far underground you are. none of this sand is familiar.\n\nthe plastic is hissing in the [[walls]].

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/greengun.png]] \n\nAntagonotropic Orthodoxer\n\nNote: Bonds with wielder\n\nPinpoint solar shots\n\nLeaf action with chlorophyll enhanced retinal studs\n\nOrthodox extra-weaponary enhancements remain in bloodstream for up to 48 hours after last grip\n\n[[no|gun]] [[yeah|drill]]\n\n<<set $weapon = "green gun">>

<<if $incisionPower eq "50%">>You tap at his <<print $surgeryScope>> like you're tickling him. You feel nothing under his skin.<<endif>><<if ($incisionPower eq "75%") and ($surgeryScope eq "abdomen")>>Blood wells up around your fingers as you probe his gut. So far, nothing.<<endif>><<if ($incisionPower eq "75%") and ($surgeryScope eq "thighs")>>Hot blood sprays up your arm with each delicate jab into his pale thighs. Nothing so far.<<endif>><<if ($incisionPower eq "75%") and ($surgeryScope eq "arms")>>His arms tremble with each probing finger. Nothing apparent.<<endif>><<if $incisionPower eq "100%">>Koner makes a grinding sound in his throat. You nick something hard and your arm sparks with pain.<<endif>>\n<<if ($incisionPower eq "100%") and ($surgeryScope eq "abdomen")>>Hooking your index under the fat you make come hither motions, fingering at his flesh until something hard squirts free. You hold it up to the [[light]].<<endif>><<if ($incisionPower eq "100%") and ($surgeryScope eq "thighs")>>His thighs once proud and full, now gouged fields, now empty graves, always empty. You hit a bone.<<endif>><<if ($incisionPower eq "100%") and ($surgeryScope eq "arms")>>You hit a bone. Nothing in his arms.<<endif>><<if ($incisionPower eq "125%") and ($surgeryScope eq "thighs")>>Through the paralysis his body tightens up in horror as you whine away at his bones. His thighs don't look like thighs anymore.<<endif>><<if ($incisionPower eq "125%") and ($surgeryScope eq "arms")>>His fingers spasm like he's playing the piano. And with a final frustrated whir of the scalpels--nothing up this sleeve, ladies and gentlemen!<<endif>><<if ($incisionPower eq "125%") and ($surgeryScope eq "abdomen")>>From the ruin of his belly you drag a handful of fat with something hard in it. You hold it up to the [[light]].<<endif>>

darkness familiar breathe\n\nshe wraps her arms around you\n\nshe gets you a glass of water\n\nshe holds you tighter than the world's hurting you\n\nwhat's wrong, she says, and you know she knows but she's letting you tell it your way\n\nand in her [[arms]] you can't recall

//Sockets are recommended for interface with:\n-video, text, audio\n-approved retinal and neurological implants\n-illegal drugs, infection from dirty vials, forgetting to clean your fucking hole, falling asleep with an open hole collecting dust and shit, and [[HIV|use]]//

A year later he was running vials and you were [[stealing|Sorry.2]] vials and this never would have happened if you hadn't been close enough to know he was holding in the first place.

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/vial.png]] \n\nThe vial glows bright green.\n\n<<if $konerDead>>Koner finishes dying and you walk [[away]]. You're not [[sorry|Sorry.]], he had the chance to sit down and act like any decent human would with a gun to their head.<<else>>You tear up the rest of Koner's bloodsopped shirt and tie up his wounds. The [[kitchen]] is probably that patch of shadows over there.<<endif>>\n\n

in the [[darkness]]

[img[http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/LD24/bluegun.png]] \n\nRime-root, Held-by-daughter\n\nCryo-nerve root action\n\nNerve-amped scatter emission\n\nRime-glands hold up to 300 austere rounds\n\nModes: Semi-arctic and full arctic\n\n[[no|gun]] [[yeah|drill]]\n\n<<set $weapon = "blue gun">>

There's some truth in there about how bright color indicates purity and you hear really good things about green from other people but in this state it feels like poetry.\n\nYou get on your hands and knees and slowly crawl around to face her. "Vulne...we're in the living business." You can't stop smiling. She raises an eyebrow and grins. "I guess we are, huh." She knows where you're coming from. She'll be there in a [[minute]].

[[...|then]]

[[focus|bumps]]\n\nshe's waiting

She would.\n\nHer fingers trace around your hole. You feel hot breath between your shoulder blades and you roll around and push her off.\n\n"Don't put your mouth on that."\n\n"Why?"\n\n"You'll get." You don't want to say HIV. The idea of you having the bug is unbearable.\n\n"You don't have the bug."\n\n"I know." You probably don't have HIV. But you haven't got tested for a long time. The [[clinic]] is all the way across the city and the idea of thinking about it all the way there and plus it's easier to just put it aside and never ever ever ever get tested. Just never get tested and keep [[living]] life.