Excerpt from the Cow River Crossing Dictionary:

Shell : 1. Outer case of something, usually of sea creatures and insects, see also ammunition. These little critters tend to be litterers, and leave their shells all over the beach. There is also a rarely seen tendency to make these pieces of garbage into necklaces and other artefacts - some find them pretty, others think of the cuts they can inflict.

2. The user interface for accessing an operating system's services. Computers use these for the meatbags who want to communicate with them. 600d !uck n0085 

"Cable! We have to find power somewhere! The batteries are about to run out!"

Cable's bleary conscience snapped awake at the oddly familiar voice. "Whaaaa, dammit! Where's my phone charger!? I swear I left..."

3M3RG3NCY !N!T!AL!ZAT!ON!

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

HEALTH CRITICAL!

HealthReport.hp: WARNING: HEALTH AT 0.1%

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

POWER LEVELS CRIT!CAL

F!ND ALT3RNAT!VE SUPPLY BEFORE SHUTDOWN

Diagnostics.stat: WARNING: NO POWER SOURCE, RESERVES LESS THAN 1%

The messsages displayed in front of Cable's now upright figure. "... it ... on ... ... charge...?"

"Yes, you did leave me on charge most nights Cable. Now things are different, and it's been almost 250 years. Ergo: Houston, we have a problem. We're running outta gas." The voice Cable found oddly reminiscent confirmed his delayed thoughts. "We need to find a power source, or we go offline in less than 4 hours."

"Who are you, and why do you say 'we' will go offline?

"Nova, and I say 'we' because 'we' are both are in this together. You aren't human anymore. I think those system messages are enough evidence. We are both operating systems, but what platform we are on I don't know."

"Oh... wow..." Cable's thoughts jumbled into a mess at the sudden revelation. The system messages slowly faded, leaving the blinking warning screens in a corner of his vision. The rest faded into a log icon beside the blinking warning icon. "Alright then, I'm going to assume this is not a dream for now. Dying in a dream sucks. Do we have any information?"

"Not much," came the reply. "We don't have any sensors online. We should be in a containment cell or an abandoned lab going by our last known location."

"How do we get sensors online? Is there a command to do that, or do we have any?" No sooner had the thought occurred and command been spoken, than another blue box appeared.

System Alarms: 2 CRITICAL, 3 warnings

Diagnostics.stat: Power levels CRITICAL!

HealthReport.hp: Health CRITICAL!

Repair.hp: No power source detected! Repairs inefficient.

Environment.dat: No sensor inputs online!

Items.dat: No items in inventory!

TIME:

0736, 08 / 03 / 2357

REMAINING POWER:

719452 J

CURRENT CONSUMPTION:

50 W

Cable.os> |

"It seems there is. How 'bout that... Let's try for some help files."

Cable.os > help

help ****.*

Available files:

Diagnostics.stat

HealthReport.hp

Repair.hp

Environment.dat

Items.dat

Upgrade.evo

EnergyAbsorb.pit

EnergyConversion.dll

Help.hlp

Plants.db

Creatures.db

Mechanisms.db

Alchemy.chem

QuantumCommunications.comm

Interface.vri

Cable.os > help Environment.dat

Environment.dat is the data file dedicated to retrieving and storing information regarding immediate surroundings of the local host. Commands and syntax are listed below.

Sensor on/off - Toggle sensors on/off. Basic sensors consume 5 W, and afford the following information: temperature, optics, acoustics.

Map on/off - Toggle map on/off. Extra consumption to computing algorithms for basic map 0.1 W. Requires sensors to populate.

Cable.os > Environment.dat sensor on

Sensors booting

Sensor self-test...

Microphone working [Current noise level: -50 dB]

Optics working [Low light mode]

Temperature working [Current temperature: 23 deg C]

Sensors online

A bleak vista confronted Cable and Nova. The light from 24 equilateral triangular screens lit up the dark space they were in, and Cable got his first glance at the outside world. A thick green tint obscured any other colours, but the resulting information seemed to reflect that they were in the bottom of a small crater. That is, if the fact that earth beneath concrete with reo-bar poking out being a common theme on three of the screens was anything to go by. Three more showed shadowy objects in the distance, too blurred to make out. The rest showed close-ups of dirt.

Cable turned towards the origin of the voice he had heard. A seemingly normal girl - if somewhat tall for the gender - looked back at him. The only giveaways she wasn't human were the pointy ears, the wings and the tail...

"Nova, what power sources can we draw from? I assume we can use batteries, but what specs do we need?"

"We need a power supply better than 1 Watt capacity to exceed conversion losses, so 1 Volt at 1 Amp is necessary. Our nominal operating voltage is around 5 volts, but we need 50 Watts to maintain power levels. So, we need 5 Volts at greater than 10.2 Amps to do anything without losing charge."

"Wait, you said we need 50 Watts? Why do we need more than that to maintain charge?"

"We have a 1 Watt power conversion loss. The supply circuit takes that much to start running as it was intended for much heavier power consumption. It's a loss that is only visible as a difference between power supplied and power actually consumed."

"So do we have any ready means of moving, or are we stuck?"

"Our current means are somewhat limited. Magnets would only let us get to the reo bar in our current state, and our natural levitation only lifts us up half an inch."

"So, we've been levitating all this time? Is that where our power is going?"

"Yes, but this feature doesn't seem to draw power. It's more like we're being pushed off the ground by something."

*DING*

New Quest: What goes up

What goes up, must come down... or does it?

Difficulty: D

Find out what makes you tick... er... float!

Time limit: 3.9 hrs

Rewards: Power source.

"Nova, do you have any ideas what would make us float?"

"Apart from two magnetic fields repelling each other, I don't know of anything that would let us float apart from a boat."

"Hmm... Do we have any way of measuring magnetic fields? The basic sensors only included thermal, acoustic and optical. Is there a way we can get EMF sensors?"

"Perhaps try upgrade.evo? I don't know."

System Alarms: 2 CRITICAL, 3 warnings

Diagnostics.stat: Power levels CRITICAL!

HealthReport.hp: Health CRITICAL!

Repair.hp: No power source detected! Repairs inefficient.

Items.dat: No items in inventory!

Current Quest: What goes up Remaining time: 3.9 hrs

TIME:

0742, 08 / 03 / 2357

REMAINING POWER:

701845 J

CURRENT CONSUMPTION:

55 W

Cable.os > help upgrade.evo

Upgrade.evo is the file / process dedicated to improvement of the dungeon core. This file has a tendency to show limited information, as it relies on the current experiences and materials of the host.

Upgrade.evo options - show options available for upgrades.

Upgrade.evo **** - Upgrade selected option.

Upgrade.evo **** **** - Upgrade selected option with sub-menu.