(if: visits <1)[(set: $money to 0)]
(if:visits <=2)[It begins, like every other day of your childhood - warmed by the memory of time, wildflower sweet with spring and sunshine. You are young, you know this, and yet you survey the room you are in from the height of adulthood.]
(if: visits <=2)[[Look around.]]
(if: visits >=3)[It (text-colour:red)[ends], like every other day of your childhood - warmed by the memory of time, wildflower sweet with spring and sunshine. You are young, you know this, and yet you survey the room you are in from the height of adulthood.]
(if:visits >=3)[[Look around.|End]]The room is familiar, yet somehow alien, and you navigate it like you would within a dream. In the centre of the space, a single granite bartop lazes, devoid of anything except what appears to be a birthday card.
[[Check the card.]]//''Happy birthday, J!''//
It contains only a simple message, and a stack of cash that inexplicably fits within the two thin cardboard pages.
[[Take the money.]]
[[Keep looking around.]](set: $money to it +10000)
You're rich! You're not quite sure who J is, or if you're J - (text-colour:red)[who are you, even?] - but you're rich!
Some people say mo' money, mo' problems, but you're fairly certain that you haven't had an issue in your life that couldn't have been solved with 10,000 extra dollars.
[[But as soon as you take the money, the room shifts.]]
(if:visits <1)[(set: $possession to "nothing")]
The change happens between one untaken breath and the next, and you find yourself in a line of other children, hesitant, marching down a hill towards a beach nowhere near your childhood suburb. The air is grey and listless now, the spindly arms of the sparse brush along the well-trodden path tugging at your clothes as you try and fail to feel the cold.
The sloping path inexplicably births a stream, a tiny, insignificant thing, but to your hindbrain, it howls like a raging river.
[[Run.]]
[[Keep marching.]]You run, and you find yourself where you started to sprint.
(if:visits>1)[(text-color:red)[''You cannot run, Diver Zero''.]]
[[Run.]]
(if:visits>1)[[Make your choice again.|But as soon as you take the money, the room shifts.]]Reality shatters less like broken glass, and more like breaching the water surface when you don’t even realise you were drowning.
''"You gave us quite some trouble, Diver Zero,"'' the Administrator says as you gasp for air, collapsed upon the warm, clinical linoluem of the Womb, the central control room of humanity's last hope against the tides. ''"Did you gain anything in your dive this time?"''
You remember the card, and reach into your pocket, where you find (if: $money >0)[$money dollars.] (if:$money <=0)[nothing.]
(if: $money >5000)+(if: visits <2)[(set: $money to it -1000)''"What a fine addition to your coffers."'' You grit your teeth at her tone, and a masked Banker takes their due with a clipped bow and the shuffle of silent feet, leaving you with [$money dollars] that you shove back into your pockets. ''"Remember the (text-colour:red)[price we must all pay]. The Ark cannot afford any dead weight. You may leave."'']
(if: $money <5000)+(if: visits <2)[''"No information, and nothing to show for your hard, hard work, either. What a shame. Remember the (text-colour:red)[price we must all pay]. The Ark cannot afford any dead weight. Get back to work."'']
(if: visits >=2)[The Administrator's clipped tone throbs with precision, and all you can taste is the bitter promise of vile saltwater. ''"Remember the (text-colour:red)[price we must all pay], Diver Zero. The Ark cannot afford any dead weight. (text-colour:red)[Your time is running out]."'']
(if:$money <5000)[[[Head to the kitchens - there is always work to be done there.]]]
(if:$money <5000)[[[Go towards the bridge - perhaps you'll run into someone who needs help with a task that will pay.]]]
(if:$money >5000)[[[Leave for the bridge. It is inevitable that you will need to Dive again soon, and you may as well enjoy your freedom while you can.|Go towards the bridge - perhaps you'll run into someone who needs help with a task that will pay.]]]
(if:$money >5000)[[[Leave for the kitchens, where there's always work to be done. You may as well make as much money as you can, while you still can.|Head to the kitchens - there is always work to be done there.]]]Aside from that granite bartop, the room is devoid of everything else except forgotten sunlight and the distant sound of waves. The faraway crash of water beats in your mind like the droning of a heart, and you know you are on the cusp of something you can never return from.
[[Take the money.]]
[[Leave it.|But as soon as you take the money, the room shifts.]](set: $money to it +100)
(if:(history: where its name contains "Go towards the bridge - perhaps you'll run into someone who needs help with a task that will pay.")'s length is 0)+(if:(history: where its name contains "Head to the kitchens - there is always work to be done there.")'s length is 0)[The cost of staying on the Ark rises with each cycle like the incessant waves that beat against her metal hull, just a little higher each time, minute enough that you don't realise it until it is too late. Even as a Diver, you are not exempt.
After all, these are countless masses out there, huddled upon the few pinnacles that had not yet been swallowed by the ocean, each with the potential to Dive back into the memory of mankind, before you became refugees in your own world, in the hopes of finding a cure for the drowning earth.
Each with the potential to Dive, yes, but whether they returned from whatever that strange, static dimension your minds were dipped into - well, that was a different situation altogether, but there were always more willing to take the place of the lost.]
You find work swiftly scrubbing dishes from the meal that has just passed. Once upon a time, the other workers would crowd around you, eager to demand the details of your Dive, but over time, that hope sluiced away like the cloudy water that drained when you pulled the plug.
Working in the kitchens reminds you of your own hunger. You do not remember the last time you ate a proper meal, your belly filled only with the remnants of amniotic fluid.
[[Buy a meal. Who knows when the next time you have the chance to choose what you eat will be?]]
[[You better save what you can. You will not starve for now, anyway, with the plasma still swimming in your veins from your Dive, and so you head for your quarters.|You better save what you can. You will not starve for now, anyway, with the plasma still swimming in your veins from your Dive.]](if:(history: where its name contains "Go towards the bridge - perhaps you'll run into someone who needs help with a task that will pay.")'s length is 0)+(if:(history: where its name contains "Head to the kitchens - there is always work to be done there.")'s length is 0)[The cost of staying on the Ark rises with each cycle like the incessant waves that beat against her metal hull, just a little higher each time, minute enough that you don't realise it until it is too late. Even as a Diver, you are not exempt.
After all, these are countless masses out there, huddled upon the few pinnacles that had not yet been swallowed by the ocean, each with the potential to Dive back into the memory of mankind, before you became refugees in your own world, in the hopes of finding a cure for the drowning earth.
Each with the potential to Dive, yes, but whether they returned from whatever that strange, static dimension your minds were dipped into - well, that was a different situation altogether, but there were always more willing to take the place of the lost.]
A figure is wreathed in the shadows of the hall you are walking down, clad in a trenchcoat and wearing a shifty expression like a primary school cautionary tale on //Stranger Danger//.
"Psst! Hey, kid! Wanna make some quick cash?"
[[You ignore them, and keep walking towards the bridge. You've re-lived too many junior school assemblies within your Dives to not take the advice of guest speakers who investigated disappearances seriously.]]
[[You incline your head to show you were listening. It wasn't as if the Ark housed any white vans with blacked-out windows that you could be bundled into the back of, anyway.]]
(if: $possession is not "a diary")[[[You decide that the culminative vibes of the Administrator's warning, the looming figure, and the devouring echo of waves are simply too atrocious to bear. Perhaps you should return to your quarters and clear your head instead.|You better save what you can. You will not starve for now, anyway, with the plasma still swimming in your veins from your Dive.]]](set: $money to it -25)
The meal is warm and fufilling, reminiscent of the stolen childhood that permeates the air of the Ark. As soon as you finish it, the comms that snake throughout the ship like nerves crackle to life, and the familiar call to Dive plays, eerie like whalesong, infinite in its possibility.
[[Ignore it, and head to your quarters.|You better save what you can. You will not starve for now, anyway, with the plasma still swimming in your veins from your Dive.]]
[[You answer the call, and Dive again.|Dive]]While the Womb pulses with each wave that breaks upon the Ark, the bridge of the ship is empty and silent, devoid of life. It does not murmur with the primordial waters siphoned from the Carriers, piped into the veins of Divers to preserve them as they breach the banks of humanity's memory, nor does it hum with the hubbub of activity of the workers present in the other Organs.
The navigation equipment sits, still and dead. There is nowhere for it to navigate to, anyway. Once upon a time, countless Dives and innumerable cycles ago, it was still possible to see the spires of the tallest buildings when you peered through the tempered glass windows, monuments to the civilisation that had doomed the world to its watery fate.
Now, there is nothing but endless waves, lapping like stray dogs against the Ark's hull.
(if: $possession is "a diary")[[You could end it all.]]
(if: $possession is not "a diary")[The comms that snake throughout the ship like nerves crackle to life, and the familiar call to Dive plays, eerie like whalesong, infinite in its possibility.]
(if: $possession is not "a diary")[[You answer the call, and Dive again.|Dive]]At your acknowledgement, the figure unfurls their palm, once-crisp bills crumpled in their hand like wilted petals.
The money is more than you would make from washing dishes for a week, and clearly not obtained from the tight economy that the Bankers oversaw. It was inevitable that another market would have sprung up beneath the artificial system established by the Administrator, drip-fed by the closely kept troves of individuals who had secreted away some wealth when they boarded the Ark. An act of desperate defiance, in the waning belief that humanity could find a way to escape extinction outside of the Dives that tore at the edges of reality a little more each time.
It takes a moment for you to speak, your vocal chords rusted with disuse. ''"What do you want?"''
They step forwards, and the cold light of the hallway reveals that they are young, far too young - pallid and perfect in the way that the few (text-colour:red)[Arkborn] that survived childbirth were. The amniotic fluid that sustained you during your last Dive roils in your belly.
"You're a Diver, aren't you?"
''"...Yes."''
"I want a story. I want to know what it is like to live."
[[Tell a story of hope.]]
(if: $possession is "a diary")[[Tell a story of truth.]]When you return to your quarters, you realise that it is unfamiliar to you. (text-colour:red)[How long were you Diving?] Long enough that they had housed some other poor, unfortunate soul in it, and long enough that they surely had not returned from their own Dive, body and mind lost forever to the gentle rocking of waves.
The comms that snake throughout the ship like nerves crackle to life, and the familiar call to Dive plays, eerie like whalesong, infinite in its possibility.
[[Search the room.]]
[[You answer the call, and Dive again.|Dive]](set: $possession to "a diary")
Beneath the mattress, like a doll carefully tucked underneath a handkerchief bedsheet, you find a crumpled notebook filled with the ramblings of a madperson, driven to insanity by the unfathomable depths of human memory.
As you read through it, (text-colour:red)[recognition] begins to drip into your mind like mineralised water, and the stalagmites of realisation grasp for divine meaning.
There are no others. There is only ''Diver Zero''. There is no way out. There is only ''Diver Zero''. There is no hope. There is only ''Diver Zero''.
There is no waking. There is only ''Diver Zero''. There is no salvation, except to buy your way out with the avarice that landed you here in the first place.
The comms that snake throughout the ship like nerves crackle to life, and the familiar call to Dive plays, eerie like whalesong, infinite in its possibility.
[[You answer the call, and Dive again.|Dive]]
[[You head to the bridge.|You ignore them, and keep walking towards the bridge. You've re-lived too many junior school assemblies within your Dives to not take the advice of guest speakers who investigated disappearances seriously.]](set: $money to it +550)
The story you weave is sweet like childhood dream, bright like rosy skies and the afterimage of a sun that promised to rise again. It is a tale of laughter and joy, of familiar ties untouched by the Administrator or severed by pinking shears in the first shuddering gasps of air after birth.
It is a story of glass and steel that rises from an earth you could still tread upon, where the beating waves of distant tides were that, and nothing else - distant, instead of the rising reality brought about by mankind's greed and ignorance.
The Arkborn's eyes are closed, and a single, serene tear slips down their face. You ache to catch it, and all the hope still encompassed within that crystalline drop.
"Thank you," they say, reverent, and you find yourself alone again.
[[Head to the bridge.|You ignore them, and keep walking towards the bridge. You've re-lived too many junior school assemblies within your Dives to not take the advice of guest speakers who investigated disappearances seriously.]]
[[Head for your quarters.|You better save what you can. You will not starve for now, anyway, with the plasma still swimming in your veins from your Dive.]](if: $money <10000)[You know the truth, and yet you are still entrapped within the endless samsara that flooded the world, blind to its gurgling cries until all you could wait for was a dove bearing an olive branch that will never come. Perhaps, back then, you had the choice to do more, but now, there is only one. You are blind to the amount, and you wonder, heartbeat peeling like skin soaked for too long in saltwater, whether you can ever find the price of freedom.]
(if: $money <10000)[[[You have no choice but to Dive again.|Dive]]]
(if: $money>=10000)[You have [$money dollars]. It is enough to buy your freedom, and allow you to leave this dream with what you know now.]
(if: $money>=10000)[[Buy your freedom.]]
(if: $money>=10000)[[There must be another way to prevent this fate.]]Perhaps the regretful ending of a friendship can be mended with careful stitches, or a hobby once discarded plucked up again from the folds of time gone by.
(text-colour:red)[But there are some things that cannot be changed once it is too late.]
Reality shatters less like broken glass, and more like breaching the water surface when you don’t even realise you were drowning, and the mantra from the diary echoes in your mind like the waves of the submerged future that is yet to come to pass.
You awaken, and make your choice.
''There must never be a Diver Zero.''There are no others. There is only ''Diver Zero''. There is no way out. There is only ''Diver Zero''. There is no hope. There is only ''Diver Zero''.
There is no waking. There is only ''Diver Zero''. There is no salvation, except to buy your way out with the avarice that landed you here in the first place.
The moans of the Carriers plead with you for freedom as you begin to drown.
[[[You Dive again, and search for another way out.|Dive]]]The birdsong has faded, and the midnight sun dapples the room in a vivid cerulean haze. The haunting heartsong of the sea beats around and within you, echoes in your footsteps as you walk towards the granite bartop in the centre of the room where a pristine silhouette sits, writing. Hearing your tidal steps, the Administrator places her pen down.
She beckons, (text-colour:red)[smiling in sea-salt and the gentle spray of amniotic fluid], and you wade into your mother's arms.
The clatter of your bones, stripped of memory and flesh, is lost amongst the ineffable sigh of the rising tide.
''There is no Diver Zero.''(set: $money to it +1000)
You cannot lie to the Arkborn, even if you try. The story tears from your throat, stings like a siphonophore on its way out, frothing with fear until it dissapates like sea foam.
You mourn for the drowned earth that slumbers in endless dream, forever lost to the greed that seeped from the top down, infectious and hungering. You remember the sinking of a world and the price you are forced to pay, the hands that hold the scales that tilt it away from the ones that turn to it, mad with hope as they fruitlessly search the horizon for the shining falsehood of the Ark.
There is no could've, there is no should've, there is no would've. Not anymore. There is only ''Diver Zero''.
The Arkborn's eyes are closed, and a single, serene tear slips down their face. You ache to catch it, and turn back all the regrets encompassed within that crystalline drop.
"Thank you," they say, reverent, and you find yourself alone once more.
The comms that snake throughout the ship like nerves crackle to life, and the familiar call to Dive plays, eerie like whalesong, infinite in its possibility.
[[Head to the bridge.|You ignore them, and keep walking towards the bridge. You've re-lived too many junior school assemblies within your Dives to not take the advice of guest speakers who investigated disappearances seriously.]]
[[You answer the call, and Dive again.|Dive]]