>> Press button for 10th floor
No sooner has Ashley relayed the location of the main office than your finger darts out like a harpoon in the hands of a jittery deck-hand. Expertly aimed from years of learning fine motor control, the end of the finger that favours utility over connection makes firm contact with the button for the 10th floor. It lights up under your touch, and a pleasing 'bing' rings out from speakers unseen. Slowly the doors begin to slide closed, as do the clouds of doubt inside your mind.
You look at your finger, still extended and still pressing down the button, and wonder if you can even recognise yourself anymore. Sure, you're wearing the towel that you and Ashley bought when you moved in together, and yes, you've got the permanently bruised collarbone of a regular passenger of your wife, but these actions... Are they really you?
There wasn't even hesitation for thought before you acted; you immediately pressed the correct button sensibly, progressing your investigation in the most efficient way possible. You didn't try to press anything else, chainsaw a hole in the ceiling, ask Ashley a perfectly pertinent question, or even squat. Intolerable as it is, you feel that you could stand it, or brush it off, if you hadn't also stuck with the plan immediately prior. No improvisation, no going off-script, no spontaneous acts of genius; no Lucy, a voice in your head adds.
The fearful hypothetical reality seeps in from the sides of your vision. It feels as if a thick, sticky sludge of banality is leaking from the elevator's control panel and pumping itself into your veins. Is this Ellen Gertie's greatest weapon? Her most despicable plan? Her hail Mary? Has she made her own trail so fraught with opportunities to behave yourself that it strips you of your greatest investigative weapon; your sense of self?
The thought niggles at your mind for the whole elevator ride, which is upwards of twelve seconds and less than fourteen seconds. The doors open, and a well-lit corridor extends away from you. But who is looking down it, you ask yourself.
"You are, Lucy. " Drainpipe replies, in its most devastatingly impressive show of empathy yet. "You didn't allow me to be lost in the train station all those hours ago, and I won't let you be lost here and now. You're Lucy, even when you refuse to obey your wiser instincts to widen the investigation via theft, assault and inanity."
Drainpipe's words send a wave of relief over you. You might be able to doubt yourself, but Drainpipe knows you far too well to do so as well
Drainpipe Von Saviour: No self-confidence loss
Behaved yourself: -1 Sass
1. Charge headlong towards biggest-looking office
2. Charge backlong towards watercooler
3. Ask Ashley for a piggyback
4. Start chainsaw and test it on the carpet
You look at your finger, still extended and still pressing down the button, and wonder if you can even recognise yourself anymore. Sure, you're wearing the towel that you and Ashley bought when you moved in together, and yes, you've got the permanently bruised collarbone of a regular passenger of your wife, but these actions... Are they really you?
There wasn't even hesitation for thought before you acted; you immediately pressed the correct button sensibly, progressing your investigation in the most efficient way possible. You didn't try to press anything else, chainsaw a hole in the ceiling, ask Ashley a perfectly pertinent question, or even squat. Intolerable as it is, you feel that you could stand it, or brush it off, if you hadn't also stuck with the plan immediately prior. No improvisation, no going off-script, no spontaneous acts of genius; no Lucy, a voice in your head adds.
The fearful hypothetical reality seeps in from the sides of your vision. It feels as if a thick, sticky sludge of banality is leaking from the elevator's control panel and pumping itself into your veins. Is this Ellen Gertie's greatest weapon? Her most despicable plan? Her hail Mary? Has she made her own trail so fraught with opportunities to behave yourself that it strips you of your greatest investigative weapon; your sense of self?
The thought niggles at your mind for the whole elevator ride, which is upwards of twelve seconds and less than fourteen seconds. The doors open, and a well-lit corridor extends away from you. But who is looking down it, you ask yourself.
"You are, Lucy. " Drainpipe replies, in its most devastatingly impressive show of empathy yet. "You didn't allow me to be lost in the train station all those hours ago, and I won't let you be lost here and now. You're Lucy, even when you refuse to obey your wiser instincts to widen the investigation via theft, assault and inanity."
Drainpipe's words send a wave of relief over you. You might be able to doubt yourself, but Drainpipe knows you far too well to do so as well
Drainpipe Von Saviour: No self-confidence loss
Behaved yourself: -1 Sass
1. Charge headlong towards biggest-looking office
2. Charge backlong towards watercooler
3. Ask Ashley for a piggyback
4. Start chainsaw and test it on the carpet