Interactive Adventure: Mad Science!

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

==> crossbreed it with the laser sharks

[Pixelmage]

==> Try to make a glass harmonica that plays heavy metal.

...

==> Succeed at making a glass harmonica that plays heavy metal.

Fix'd.

[Dryunya]

I hereby revoke my previous statement and pick this one.

[Guyshane]

Build a giant robot suit to help the environment

[Krika]

=>Researching ghosts! Hey, this means if you're successfully, you can talk to Ethan and apologize in person!

[RussetDivinity]

Selecting...

[RussetDivinity]

1. Discover the frequency that instantly vaporizes all listeners.
2. Learn how to play a wraith's wail, or whatever the equivalent on the dread glass harmonica is called.
3. Succeed at making a glass harmonica that plays heavy metal.
4. crossbreed it with the laser sharks
5. Succeed at making a glass harmonica that plays heavy metal.
6. Build a giant robot suit to help the environment
7. Researching ghosts! Hey, this means if you're successfully, you can talk to Ethan and apologize in person!

Random number generator says... 6.

The dread glass armonica is only one part of a much larger robot suit which you were building specifically to help the environment. It is, in fact, the last part, the bit that makes sound. You set it into the throat of the robot, where polluted water will run over it, being cleaned and providing power for the armonica to make your voice sound all weird and eerie. As you put the finishing touches on your robot, you consider dedicating it to Ethan, but then you decide to go with your original plan and dedicate it to Ben Franklin, who invented the armonica and has a portrait -- and hopefully soon a clone -- in your mad science hall of fame.

Once your giant robot suit is complete, you allow yourself a moment to laugh maniacally again and get ready to climb into it. Soon, its every step will help to cleanse the air of pollutants and destroy tiger hunters. It even has little nanobots inside it that you can send out to save the world, or just cause general mayhem. To be honest, you'll probably end up using them for both. Your laugh has just reached its peak when you're interrupted by Maddie, another of your minions. She runs up to you, holding the fonduer full of cheese.

"I'm sorry for interrupting," she calls before you can order her fed to the laser-sharks, "but you'll need to leave now if you want to get to the Fondue Fest."

You gasp. In all the tragedy over losing first your cheese, then Ethan, you'd nearly forgotten how close the festival was. You take the fonduer and are about to head out to your garage when you remember that all your cars are terrible for the environment. Well, not terrible, but not good, either. A smile crosses your face when you realize that this will be the perfect use for your giant robot suit. Using the nifty ladder on the side, you climb up, tuck the fonduer into a safe place, and start up the robot. Maddie grabs the flashlights and waves you out to the hangar, where you set out toward the festival.

Now that you're in a giant robot, you don't need to take the roads. There's time to make a side trip if you want, or you could get to the festival and take the best parking spots. Where do you want to go?

[narrativedilettante]

=> Straight to the festival. Good parking trumps all!

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

==> The moon

[Dryunya]

==> Go to the festival in a straight line. Who cares about buildings - you have a giant robot!

[RussetDivinity]

Selecting...

[RussetDivinity]

1. Straight to the festival. Good parking trumps all!
2. The moon
3. Go to the festival in a straight line. Who cares about buildings - you have a giant robot!

Random number generator says... 3.

What with losing a good minion today (whose body you've decided to drop off at the reef after the festival; he'd have wanted you to get the fondue there, and his body will keep well in the cooler located on the robot's lower back) and getting to make your own cheese by accelerating time, you've had quite enough adventure. It's time to head to the festival, and you're going there in the most direct way possible: a straight line. You don't need roads. You've got a giant robot.

Unfortunately, a straight line runs right through a major metropolis. For a moment, you consider cutting around, but then you decide against it. After all, in a fight between a city and a giant robot, a giant robot wins every time. Besides, what's the fun in being a mad scientist if you can't indulge in a little mayhem now and then? Laughing -- you've been doing this a lot today, and it's doing wonders for your mood -- you head straight for the city, prepared to crush buildings beneath your feet. You'll aim for the ones that look like they're polluting the most or just filled with jerks, of course, and avoid the schools. You always try to avoid the schools. Children are the future.

Tromping through a city is a great deal of fun, and you wonder why you haven't done it before. You're up high enough that the screams of the fleeing civilians can still reach your ears without being annoyingly loud, and the way the robot can crush SUVs and those annoyingly large Jeeps is very satisfying. Ethan would have been proud if he had ever worked on this, and you know Maddie will be. It's working perfectly: zero carbon emissions, not a chance of light pollution, and it leaves behind some genetically modified clover that will be nearly impossible to uproot or kill as it supports the local honeybee population.

You've just crushed a fast-food restaurant (to the cheers of the employees, to whom you wave) when you hear something behind you. It sounds familiar, though you haven't heard it in quite a while. Who's after you now?

[Guyshane]

Emperor Palpatine inside his giant robot Darth Vader suit.

[Dryunya]

==> Future you. The familiar sound is his warning siren, telling you to stay away, so that you two don't meet and crash the space-time continuum.

[JackAlsworth]

==> Past you, from approximately 14.27 seconds ago, due to the spacetime harmonic disruption inherent in your robot's engine.

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

==> Gerald, from Accounting

[Victin]

==> This, followed by an explosion.

[narrativedilettante]

==> Gerald, from Accounting

Seconded.

[Krika]

=> The local super-hero Metamorph.

[Dryunya]

==> Gerald, from Accounting

Seeing how it is officially a Running Gag, I wanted to suggest it, but it makes little sense.
Not that it stopped us before, but I'll stick with the future you.

[RussetDivinity]

Selecting...

[RussetDivinity]

1. Emperor Palpatine inside his giant robot Darth Vader suit.
2. Future you. The familiar sound is his warning siren, telling you to stay away, so that you two don't meet and crash the space-time continuum.
3. Past you, from approximately 14.27 seconds ago, due to the spacetime harmonic disruption inherent in your robot's engine.
4. Gerald, from Accounting
5. This, followed by an explosion.
6. Gerald, from Accounting
7. The local super-hero Metamorph.

Random number generator says... 3.

With a feeling of intense foreboding, you realize that it hasn't been a long time since you heard that sound. You heard it recently. Very recently. 14.27 seconds ago, to be exact. It's coming from directly behind you and is so familiar that it sends prickles up the back of your neck, though you can't quite place it. You turn slowly, preparing a blast of environmentally friendly lasers just in case, but when you see who made the sound, you can't bring yourself to shoot.

It's you. You from exactly 14.27 seconds ago. The sound you heard was your own laughter.

The weird thing is, you don't remember seeing yourself. You certainly don't remember having your future self point a bunch of lasers at you. Before past-you can decide that it would be a good idea to fight back (if you know know past you, then you know that's a very likely possibility) you lower your lasers and offer a friendly wave.

Then you hear your own voice, coming to you from just down the street, made eerie and unfamiliar by the dread glass armonica. "Um... nice robot suit. It looks suspiciously like mine."

"That's because it is yours," you say. "I'm you. Rather, you're me, because I'm not anyone else."

"Well, I'm not anyone else either," past-you says. You're beginning to dislike yourself.

Before you can continue a snippy argument or decide to just fight your past self, an alarm goes off by your left hand. It's the space-time alarm, which has been tracking the danger the space-time continuum is in. Now that it's going off, the space-time continuum is about to break in six seconds. It's the one scenario every mad scientist fears, because no one knows what will happen when space and time decide to waltz off for a coffee.

What do you do? Is there anything you can do?

[Krika]

=> Remove the source of the problem, namely one of your two selves.

[Dryunya]

==> Punch space-time continuum in the snout to establish superiority.

[narrativedilettante]

=> Travel back in time by 14.27 seconds.