<<set $sword to "no">>There is a cracking sound like ribs being forced open, and they snap your sword in half. Hydraulic fingers grasp for your throat with one hand and draw the severed blade from its would with the other. You struggle and fight for the upper hand, but you're thrown back with ease. The ground holds you while the world spins. <<nobr>><<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>\nThe little ambient light surrounding you shifts as it reaches your eyes. You can feel a tugging at the back of the optical nerve; some new piece of machinery, God knows what, inserting itself for later use.<<endif>><<endnobr>>\n\nWashed with glowing blue blood, they lift themselves off the ground and vanish into the night. \n\nTendrils of circuitry grasp what remains of your blade, flowing into you new configurations as you watch and taking on new substance. You raise the blade to your lips, pause, and [[look at it]].\n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

The warping engines of your body pulls you forward. You flow through space and are upon them, twisting and gnawing. Metal and flesh tears beneath your hands until all lies still.\n\nLight flickers through the awnings of the garden as something bright-shining passes in the night. Oily blood drips from your mouth. Silicon brain matter containing worlds sticks to your teeth as you chew. \n\nThe sound of tiny bubbles popping fills your skull, and something wraps itself around your spine. The temperature changes. You taste warmth on the air. Something unfurls in the centre of the garden.\n\nYou look up.

The wires, plugs and gore beckon to you. You can feel it silken on your fingers and dripping through your suit. The dew on your lips is like apples - you've never eaten apples, but you're sure that these are how they would feel. \n\nThe choice remains: do you [[consume]] your bounty, or do you [[reject]] its allure.\n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

<<set $major_part_consumed to "yes">><<set $energy += 1>>As soon as the material passes your gullet, your throat clenches and your gut wrenches. For a moment, you cease to feel anything as something shorts out. But then a fire starts in your chest and it burns. Ribs and vertebrae click into and out of place, flesh is liquefied and reshaped. Your sight pops out in one eye temporarily then returns as you feel movement in your skull. \n\nYour body audibly buzzes with excitement and the crackle of static. The new engines within you drag you along and set you back to your hunt. \n\n<<if $fighter_followed is "yes" and $healer_followed is "no">>You sniff the air and taste the wall beside you. There. Delicious. With the cracking of joints, you follow your electronic instincts and [[follow the first]].<<else if $fighter_followed is "no" and $healer_followed is "yes">>You sniff the air and taste the wall beside you. There. Delicious. With the cracking of joints, you follow your electronic instincts and [[follow the second]].<<else if $fighter_followed is "yes" and $healer_followed is "yes">>It dawns on you - registering with senses that you can't explain or identify - where the last of your prey has gone. The adapter plugged into your chest locks onto the wireless signal they emit and it yanks you to your feet. Words flash across your mind, and you know that they stand waiting in [[the garden]].<<endif>>

<<set $fighter_followed = "yes">><<if $took_high_road is "yes">>You quickly find a convenient pipe that runs the height of a building from far above to the deep below. It's hot enough to boil meat, but the temperature modulators in your hands are efficient enough to compensate for a time. \n\nIt's difficult to suppress a howl of joy as you slide earthwards. This is one of the (many, often contradictory) reasons that you exist, one of the reasons you are here. Your nervous system is moderated more by internal than external stimuli now, but you feel the ghost of adrenaline impregnate your body regardless.\n\nUnfortunately, you reach the platform along which your target runs many moments too late. They slide along the surface and lance through the air in bounds, putting you far behind them.\n\nThere is nothing for it but to [[give chase]].<<else>>You plummet towards your mark, arms spread wide to embrace the longer fall as membranes unfurl from between your arms and your abdomen. A chorus of synths roar in your head. Their swells and crescendos are catered to your movements and their screaming provides the perfect counterpoint to your flight. \n\nThe sleek figure below you tilts their head as you fall, not needing to see you to know your approach. A weapon emerges from a sheath with a crackle and the sound pierces through the soundtrack you've played for yourself. Suddenly, that growing crackle and pop is the only thing to be heard. \n\nDo you try to [[knock them down]], or do you try to [[land and confront]] them?<<endif>>\n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

<<set $took_high_road to "no">><<set $energy -= 1>><<if $energy lt "0">>Darkness closes as you register that you are spent, that your reserves have failed you so close to the feast, and that you must [[shut down]].<<else if $energy gte "0">>With a simple exertion of will, still fluid gains sudden dynamism and forces its way through your body to your legs. The sudden force empowers them, kickstarting mechanisms that had been dormant moments before. \n\nYour elegant pace becomes a lope and the LEDs buried under your skin burn to warn enemies of danger. \n\nThe whole world is reduced for a brief moment to nothing but the sensation of your feet propelling you ever further and ever faster.\n<<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>A pinging begins deep within your skull, a wordless counting of numbers.<<endif>>\n\nYou hardly notice as you gain on your foe, approach them, prepare to [[lunge and destroy]].<<endif>>

<<if $fighter_followed is "yes" and $healer_followed is "no">>You sniff the air and taste the wall beside you. There. Delicious. With the cracking of joints, you follow your electronic instincts and [[follow the first]].<<else if $fighter_followed is "no" and $healer_followed is "yes">>You sniff the air and taste the wall beside you. There. Delicious. With the cracking of joints, you follow your electronic instincts. You spot them traversing a narrow ledge below and [[follow the second]].<<else if $fighter_followed is "yes" and $healer_followed is "yes">>It dawns on you - registering with senses that you can't explain or identify - where they have gone. The adapter plugged into your chest locks onto the wireless signal they emit and it yanks you to your feet. Words flash across your mind, and you know that they stand waiting in [[the garden]].<<endif>>\n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

<<set $healer_escape to "yes">><<set $took_high_road to "yes">>You slap a hand against the wall as you fall together, tearing at your opponent with the other. Handholds rush past, eluding your grip until the last possible moment. You catch yourself, and the transgressor jerks against your hand as their body attempts to pull them down to the distant gravel. \n\nYou squeeze the slice of armour you hold tight, ready to pull them up to you and incapacitate them for as long as it takes. They squeal, though, and the wall is suddenly scarred as jets explode from their back and propel them from your grasp. They lunge across the chasm, over a building, and are gone. \n\nThe climb takes too long, but you arrive eventually, flaky chunk of armour-skin hanging rigid in your grip. Circuits flash across it in the light and you hold it up to [[look at it]] more closely. <<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>New ducts begin to open along your palms and legs as like calls to like and your ever-changing body calls to the wiry mess that you have created. Liquids are sucked into you and recycled back through your system in a thousand tiny cycles.<<endif>>\n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

<<set $took_high_road to "no">>Your body is liquid and lightning, too fast even for the outdated tissue of your brain to comprehend. As though at a distance you see yourself overcome your foe. The collision is a dull thunderclap in the distance and the sound of breaking ribs. \n\n<<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>A pinging begins deep within your skull, a wordless counting of numbers. This is new, and it doesn't go away.<<endif>>\n\nYou grapple and writhe, rolling in a death-grip that threatens to hurl you both from the ledge and into the hungry arms that beckon deep in the city's light. \n\nYour foe bucks and struggles while words flash across their LCD-mouth. STOP and DIE. FALL and RUN. KILL. \n\n<<if $sword is "yes">>The opportunity presents itself, and you ram your sword into their throat with abandon. Thick blood pours forth like wine and immediately begins to stick and solidify. \n\nThe wound doesn't stop them from grabbing the handle of your blade and beginning to twist. They're strong, and though you struggle, there is little you can do unless you spend the last precious drops of your heartblood. If you do, you will have no choice but to take some of theirs. Do you choose to [[save your weapon]], or [[save your energy]]?\n<<else if $sword is "no">>You tear chunks from their body with your hands and the wicked talons on your feet. They bleed before you and you leave them in pieces. \n\nFor all that they bleed, there is little inside them that is still human. You [[sort through the pieces]].<<endif>>\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

<<nobr>>\n<<set $energy to 2>>\n<<set $took_high_road to "no">>\n<<set $sword to "yes">>\n<<set $healer_alive to "yes">>\n<<set $fighter_alive to "yes">>\n<<set $healer_followed to "no">>\n<<set $fighter_followed to "no">>\n<<set $healer_escape to "no">>\n<<set $fighter_escape to "no">>\n<<set $minor_part_consumed to "no">>\n<<set $major_part_consumed to "no">>\n<<endnobr>>\nYou stand above the fevered furnace of the city and watch two figures descend. They escaped your first encounter, just, and you're still surrounded by the wreckage of victory.\n\nMetre by metre then speck by speck they jump, and fall into the light. [[A vast artery]] throbs beneath them both, the streets of the city below, offering a different kind of freedom to that found up here amongst the sinuous [[electric tendons and wires]] like the buildings have vomited their nerves into the sky. \n\nYou gnaw your bottom lip and prepare to follow [[your quarry]].

<<set $energy -= 1>><<set $took_high_road to "yes">>You twine yourselves together like serpents falling from the sky. You hiss and bite for dominance as the city threatens to swallow you. \n\nThe fall takes moments, minutes, but with slow inevitably you force your mouth towards your prey and their body below yours. When the surface arrives (too soon, always - the rush cut kneejerk short). They hit the ground and something in your grip bursts like a flesh-and-metal balloon. Your knees and hands push through your prey with the impact and the platform crumbles a little below you. They should stop twitching in moments with the damage you've done, but something animates them - in a ragged movement you're thrown back, and the oil-pulp mess picks itself up, drops from the ledge, and is gone.\n\n<<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>New ducts begin to open along your palms and legs as like calls to like and your ever-changing body calls to the wiry mess that you have created. Liquids are sucked into you and recycled back through your system in a thousand tiny cycles.<<endif>>\n<<if $energy lt "0">>Darkness closes as you register that you are spent, that your reserves have failed you so close to the feast, and that you must [[shut down]].\n<<else if $energy gte "0">>Hungrily, you throw yourself to the ground and [[sort through the pieces]] that remain.<<endif>>\n

Your lack of knowledge about them makes you uncomfortable. You know that they're fast, that they leap like lightning, that coolant and sparks drip from their bodies like entrails when your blade parts their flesh. \n\nIt is strange that they would travel together, that they would wear the same unfamiliar insignia. No one travels together here. You don't want to know what corporate god might have sent them here or why.\n\nA notification still dances across your vision, sputtering - a message that woke you from slumber and told you that your prey was nearby. You ignore the bar beside it, the one that tells you that you should sleep now to conserve energy or you will sleep forever. \n\nAs you brace yourself to leap after them, the paths of the two figures diverge. One tears a window from its frame with a sound like bone popping from its socket, and the other descends still further to whatever lies below. \n\nYou know where they are going via their circuitous paths. It's where all who make their way in this cracked outer skin of the city go. You can [[ambush them]] from above, though it is a longer and less predictable path. Or you can [[fall with them]], guaranteeing success, though there will be a price in energy as you manipulate internal circuits and mechanisms to ensure that you can control your fall. \n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

The city below calls. \n\nThe sound of shouting and sirens, dimly filtered through miles of cables and the grafted growths that line the sides of buildings, speaks to a different world. Different divinities hold sway on the ground, and they patrol their claims jealously. You can see crowds like amoeba down there, splitting and merging with abandon. It is a great living engine and it consumes all. \n\nThe rooftops and the spaces between are a vast outgrowing of all that the city is and isn't. Where the glow from below is bright, the passages of sinews that erupt through here are bathed in shadow. While throbbing music booms far below, here it is an echo. For those who build themselves anew from their guts to their fingers, the [[electric tendons and wires]] that make up the rooftops of this place provide a place to hide, and a place to hunt. \n\nDefiantly, [[your quarry]] falls silently from one world to another. \n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

<<set $healer_escape to "yes">><<set $took_high_road to "no">>A stalemate instant passes and you pounce, but your opponent has plans of their own. You catch them by the shoulder, and they grab your sword as it cuts the air in search of blood. A jolt of electricity through your arm, and your blade fades out of life with a crack. <<set $sword to "no">>Pushing you back and throwing the crushed blade of your sword down a dark passage, your prey crouches, leaps, is gone.\n\nIt was not for nothing, however. Your hand is slick with the matter that exploded outwards as you tore some secondary system from the space between their shoulder and their ribs. Loose wires dangle uselessly as it slides from your grip with fluid ease.\n\nDo you [[look at it]] or do you [[seek out the next]]?\n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

<<set $took_high_road to "yes">> Concrete and steel pass beneath your feet as you climb higher. With a moment of concentration, a marker superimposes itself over your eyes and guides the way. Past purple gardens of lights and cancerous devices that speak only to the buildings they frame, you climb, jump and stalk. \n\nAs you do, you see glimpses of your prey far below, weaving between pillars and passing into the hungry light of the buildings that you scale. Opportunity presents itself: their paths diverge further, isolating the two from one another for a few precious moments. \n\nYour blade, wired into your neurons by a dock in the cradle of your hacked hand, tells you that the time is ripe to strike.\n\nYou permit yourself a moment to decide. Should you [[follow the first]] of them, the one with blue light glistening from between gaps in body armour, or should you [[follow the second]], with a masked face and an LED mouth displaying rolling pixel-script? \n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

<<if $energy is "0">>You toss the sweet fruit aside, unsure that the price is one you are willing to pay. It hits the ground with a wet slap and you feel something inside yourself salivate despite your disgust. Everything fades into darkness around you, and that hunger is the last thing you know before your systems start to [[shut down]]. <<else if $energy gt 0>>You toss the sweet fruit aside, unsure that the price is one you are willing to pay. It hits the ground with a wet slap and you feel the glands beneath your tongue begin to lubricate despite your disgust. Lifting your head, you [[seek out the next]].<<endif>>

<<nobr>><<set $fighter_escape to "yes">><<set $energy -= 1>><<endnobr>>You land metres from them, accompanied by the satisfying gasp of hydraulics in your legs compensating for the fall. You bare fangs and run your tongue along serrated bone edges. The foe that looms out of the darkness before you, dominated by the flashing LEDs, speaks pixellated heiroglyphics that are alien and strange.\n\n<<nobr>><<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>Something newly-generated throbs inside your chest and you feel it push against your throat. You laugh, and your voice is different; like machine code caught in your throat.<<else if $major_part_consumed is "no">>\nYou laugh.<<endif>><<endnobr>>\n\nYou leap.\n\n<<if $sword is "yes">>Your sword pierces armour and quickly finds a gap between ribs. It passes cleanly in and out of their body and they collapse to their knees. The LED mask drops from their face and reveals a metal-lined mouth in its place. Coughing on their knees, a circuit board and other viscera explodes up from their lungs and out of that mouth. You raise your sword to strike, but the coughing halts - they look up at you, legs coil like springs, and they leap again into the dark.\n\n<<else if $sword is "no">>Your hands beat uselessly against armour until you find a gap between plates. Tearing, fingers pass cleanly in and out of your foe's body and the machine-being lapses to their knees. The LED mask drops from their face and reveals a metal-lined mouth in its place. Coughing on their knees, a circuit board and other viscera explodes up from their lungs and out of that mouth. You raise your fist to strike, but the coughing halts - they look up at you, legs coil like springs, and they leap again into the dark.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $energy lt "0">>You go to pursue, but you have pushed yourself too far. Your senses begin to switch off one by one as you[[shut down]]<<else if $energy gte "0">>The circuit board spits and sparks on the ground. Unconsciously, you reach down to [[look at it]].<<endif>>

You are:\n<ul>Hungry\nAbsorbing oxygen through a permeable membrane\nIn need of coffee\n<<if $fighter_alive is "no" or $healer_alive is "no">>A murderer<<else if $fighter_alive is "yes" or $healer_alive is "yes">>A fighter<<endif>>\n<<if $minor_part_consumed is "yes">>A cannibal<<else if $minor_part_consumed is "no">>A scavenger<<endif>>\n<<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>\s???error-??#209?<<else if $major_part_consumed is "no">>A human<<endif>></ul>Graphical overlay:<ul>Experiencing a flickering in your right-eye GUI\n<<if $took_high_road is "yes">>Following a blinking marker<<endif>></ul>Equipment:\n<ul><<if $sword is "yes">>A ridiculous sword<<else if $sword is "no">>A ridiculous broken sword<<endif>>\nNo coffee\n<<if $minor_part_consumed is "yes">>A high-pitched buzzing somewhere behind your left eye<<endif>></ul>Systems:\n<ul><<if $major_part_consumed is "no">>Normal<<else if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>Bleeding<<endif>></ul>Modifications:\n<ul><<if $major_part_consumed is "no">>Gliding membranes\nReflex quickeners\nComposition suite\nTransmorphic digestion\nCombat suite\nReinforced strength<<else if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>error<<endif>></ul><<if $energy is "2">>Your batteries are at 20%<<else if $energy is "3">>Your batteries are at 30%<<else if $energy is "1">>Your batteries are at 10%<<else if $energy is "0">>Your batteries are at 0% - HIBERNATION IMMINENT<<endif>>\n\nYou are written by: \n<ul>Adeline Nova - [[@magicspacegirl|https://twitter.com/magicspacegirl]]</ul>\nYour inspirations are:\n<ul>[[Tron 1.5|http://tron15.bandcamp.com/]] \nThey/them pronouns\n[[[Mutant]Heat|http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/mutant.html#9]] - Porpentine</ul>\n\n\n<<return>>

<<set $healer_followed to "yes">><<if $took_high_road is "yes">>You scale the wall with ease, bursting from the shadows of fluorescent signposts and disappearing back into their embrace in fluid movements. <<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>Something unknown presses against your eyeball from within and you feel your vision sharpening - every angle cuts into your vision like a knife.<<endif>>\nBut for all your stealth, your prey turns to face you calmly. Steam billows gently from beneath their armour as the blue light within intensifies. They say something in a language you don't understand with a gravelly voice that's modulated by many layers of hardware.\n\nYour lips curl into a snarl and you feel your fangs flex as they do.\n\nDo you [[strike]] or do you [[bide your time]] for the right moment?<<endif>><<if $took_high_road is "no">>You glide silently through the air, enjoying the few moments of peace amongst the chaos, and pass through the burst window with ease. \n\nThe harsh light of the building interior burns against your artificial retinas. The hunt is so often like this. Peeling open some corporate bastion or databank and discovering the steel beneath the skin is rarely pleasant for one modified to live in a different, outside, world. \n\nA drone, plugged into the wall by their throat and choking, barely notices your passing. You spot your prey as they burst through another window to the outside and while the world is beginning to reassert physical laws again you still have the edge in speed. \n<<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>\nSome previously-locked signal pulses through your fingertips, and it feels like, for a moment, you're touching soft skin. It's gone in a moment and your fingers go cold and dead.<<endif>>\n\nYou explode out of the building and crash against them as they try to hang from the opposite wall. There is no time for them to anchor themselves and you fall together. Steam billows violently from beneath their armour as the blue light within intensifies. They say something into the wind in a language you don't understand with a gravelly voice modulated by many layers of hardware.\n\nYour lips curl into a snarl and you feel your fangs flex as the sky flees from you.\n\nDo you seek to [[kill]] or do you [[incapacitate]]?<<endif>>\n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

You step forward and they offer hands to consume you in their embrace. Their hands are like fire to the touch and softer than anything you have known. \n\nSomething falls into place and a pressure is lifted. Slowly, the engines within you wind down and stop their infernal motions. \n\nYou bow your head.\n\n>Error.\n>Error.\n>Error.\n

The fallen piece of sparking circuitry and ragged flesh spits steaming coolant and pumps the last blood from its veins. You don't recognise the make, let alone what purpose it might serve. Your body recognises something in it, though, and you feel internal mechanisms recalibrating themselves in a chorus to whatever electronic song it sings.\n\n<<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>A loud drumming starts in your chest, beating aghainst your ribcage and your eardrums. It is seemingly without rhythm and purpose, but you feel it through your body and soul.<<endif>> Fluid pools in your mouth, responding to instincts both ancient and enhanced as you pick up the rabid meat-machine eager to [[devour]].\n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

<<set $energy += 1>><<set $major_part_consumed to "yes">>You tear at the precious life with sharpened teeth, taking messy bites that drip with glistening gore. As it surges through you, sleeping functions come to life once again. Licking your lips, you [[seek out the next]] foe.

The rooftops are home of a sort. It is safe here, to some extent, for people like you. It is quiet, and you can walk for days without fear of discovery. \n\nThe ground here is wet with grease and blood where you found [[your quarry]] for the first time. You scrounge in the mess almost unconsciously, licking the bloody mess of wires that you pulled from the bigger of your two opponents. \n\nWisely, they are running, ready to lick their wounds. Quickly, quietly, they flee the relative safety afforded by the darkness and fall. [[A vast artery]] glows red and blue below, threatening to swallow them whole. \n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

<<set $fighter_alive to "no">><<set $energy -= 1>><<if $energy lt "0">>Screaming augmentations lining your arms imbue you with sudden force as you twist your blade and yank it free. Your freshly-impaled mark convulses, pumping blood and darkgolden coolant in spurts. \n\n<<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>The little ambient light surrounding you shifts as it reaches your eyes. You can feel a tugging at the back of the optical nerve; some new piece of machinery, God knows what, inserting itself for later use.<<endif>>\n\nYour GUI starts to go from flickering to fading. The battery notification bar burns itself into your artificial retina as you dip your weary head to [[consume]] this blessed feast.\n\n<<else if $energy gte "0">>With smooth movements you pull your blade from their throat and let it cut through the air. With the gift of augmented vision you almost swear you could see the molecules bursting as they come into contact with your sword.\n\nYou take off an arm, one that twitches mechanically on the ground while it fizzes and hisses. Unfortunately, they carry their weapon with the other hand and it booms against your chest moments later. The shock knocks you back; not enough to take you down, but enough to give them time to escape between two poles that glow like neon lava.\n\n<<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>The little ambient light surrounding you shifts as it reaches your eyes. You can feel a tugging at the back of the optical nerve; some new piece of machinery, God knows what, inserting itself for later use.<<endif>>\n\nEnergy still courses through the chips and circuits grafted into the severed arm. Without a thought you find yourself lifting the dying thing to [[look at it]].<<endif>>\n

<<nobr>><<set $took_high_road is "no">><<set $energy -= 1>><<endnobr>>An instant of kinetic force pulses through you as you push yourself from the ledge and start to fall. You bend and twist in the air, falling head over head and cutting a lightning path through stagnant space. \n\nWith a clenching of your free fist, microchips bite down into the soft tissue of your brain and the world begins to slow. Each speck of dust is highlighted and the patterns they make would be dizzying if your focus wasn't perfectly concentrated on your downward route. You fling yourself with ease from antennas and billboards that protrude like blisters as the energy in your flesh converts your consciousness into elegant moments of supercomputer bliss. \n\nYour quarry hardly notices your descent and they move as though caught in pus. You take a moment to decide which to pursue; you have the leisure, after all. Should you [[follow the first]] one, blue light glistening from between gaps in body armour, or should you [[follow the second]], with a masked face and an LED mouth displaying rolling pixellated script?

Vision fades to blu-\nblack\n?>\n-Entering Hibernation-\n>Error\n>Error\n>Error

<<set $took_high_road to "no">>You wait for a few long moments, queuing up defensive routines in your CPU (with no doubt that your opponent is doing the same). \n\nThen everything happens at the same time. They lunge at you and those queued processes force you into motion faster than you ever could have done without the miles of wiring running through your brain. \n\nYour blade flashes and the light in your opponent's false eyes burns. You lunge, they kick. You parry, they grab. All of this in near-silence. When you chose this life you gave up the desire to breathe, and so there is no air to expel from your lungs. As for your quarry, their mask holds a great many secrets and it offers its own silence in response.\n\nYour modifications and augmentations don't protect you from their grasping hands for long, though. It only lasts an instant before you repel them with a slash, but your blue-lit foe bites down with an implant hidden in their fingertips. The pain is incredible (although it cuts out completely in moments by a redirection of the nerves) as they drink blood and precious power. The flickering in your GUI worsens, the image cutting out entirely for a second, and you can feel the enervation sucking through your limbs. <<nobr>><<set $energy -= 1>><<endnobr>>\n\nThey croak another gravelly phrase in a forgotten tongue, and they crouch, leap, are gone.\n\nIt was not for nothing, however. Your hand is slick with the matter that exploded outwards as you tore some secondary system from the space between their shoulder and their ribs. Loose wires dangle uselessly as it slips from your fingers. \n\nDo you [[look at it]], or do you [[seek out the next]]?\n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

<<set $fighter_alive to "no">>You crash down upon them in a flurry of blows. You jab and claw while they smash at you with their smeared-purple electric stick.\n\nYour system barely manages to redistribute the overload from each blow (outdated as it is), but it is enough. Quickly you find yourself pulling your blade from a wound in their head that threatens to swallow your sword whole. \n\nThe lights go out in every piece of hardware that studs their flesh and clothes. Soon they are a lump of once-person dead on the floor. <<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>A pinging begins deep within your skull, a wordless counting of numbers. This is new, and it doesn't go away.<<endif>>\n\nTheir chest splits open easily, revealing the treasure within. Biting your bottom lip in expectation, you [[sort through the pieces]]. \n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.

The walls are lined with moss. It is the only place where things live in the city other than the city itself. \n\n<<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>You feel yourself changing with each step, internal mechanisms reconfiguring themselves with each moment in anticipation of the bounty that awaits. Or is it an ending?<<endif>>\n\nThe city is dead here. It is where all organs of the future come to pass away from this world and be given new life. Your prey awaits, hands linked in a silent exchange of information. \n\nThey are new to you; you know that much now. And their guts are so unlike yours. They are driven by far darker engines that roar far louder in your synthetic ears. \n\nYou hunger to tear them apart, though you know that it will change you or, perhaps, leave you broken. \n\nDo you [[consume them]] or do you accept the ending that the garden promises - do you [[join them]]?

<<set $took_high_road to "no">>Both pairs of feet skip across the concrete platform. The walls on either side threaten to lean in infinitely, until they cross over and crush you in between. They waver back and forth, swing in and out like lungs. \n\nThe thought of those walls causes you to suck in air unnecessarily. The sacs in your chest are useless for anything besides speech, but they distantly remember what it was to breathe. <<if $major_part_consumed is "yes">>A pinging begins deep within your skull, a wordless counting of numbers. This is new, and it doesn't go away.<<endif>>\n\nWith the wind of a breathing city guiding your footsteps you chase down your prey - consumed in the role of some long-dead predator's descendant. But the ghosts of extinct animals are not enough to gain ground, and they slip further away. You could invigorate your muscles to [[catch up]], though it would drain your core systems further. You cannot help but be conscious of the flickering bar over your right eye warning you of dwindling batteries. If you run, you will need to feed soon and feed well.\n\nYou may run a [[status]] update.