Phase Q/Intermodal

Drums beat. Hearts ache. The sounds and the glories of a winning war sound loud. Like a trumpet in the days of yore, like a blaring synthetic laser today. The war is over.

What a celebration! With hypnofetti falling and flying, simultaneously. The blazing hot liquid erupts like a volcano into thirsty drinkers’ cups. Dances fly through the air, freely.

You put on your 360 goggles and join the party. Celebrate! Have a grand time.

Worry about the future later.

You jostle with the ruffians, you mamba with the zonnyxes.

Worry later.

For now, there are millions of new kinds of food to try. All around you, you look and see inventions of the mind. Pastries that turn into gel as they ooze through your throat. Candy that lights up your eyes. Flavors that don’t taste like flavors.

And the sex games.

Your body seems to take on some of the springiness from the tubeworks. As you imagine yourself getting aroused, your body flexes and vibrates along with thousands, millions of others in the crowds. You feel each other’s souls. Moving like lightning, you feel like thunder. It feels so fuckingood.

Even the Zonnyxes take to the sex games, surmounting hurdles as they dominate the field. With the artificial beings bouncing around, you experience new kinds of love.

And then it dawns on you.

It’s gone. Bye. No more of the mainstream Trads remain, nor more of the Futuristas.

How you survived, remains something of a mystery. Yet, here you are, in a world full of unfamiliar beings.

Looking around, you see that the sky has changed. Full of flashing Zonnyxes, the bright hues remind you of alien planets from childhood stories.

The high-tech armor on the farm boys seems, in addition to slightly out of place, like a daydream. And their faces and voices remind you, again, more of childhood stories than of everyday reality.

Oh well.

You’ll find a place. You have before. It’s in your genetic code.

To some extent you face familiar situations, even though you don’t recognize anything. Walking around, you kick the ground, and notice that the Zonnyxes have even replaced the dirt with something different. A puff of dust assembles itself midair, flashes a light, and falls back down to the ground as a glowing green liquid.

You feel a sense of relief about some of your problems. Your arm has regenerated, you’ve grown a new uniform, and you’re surrounded by a constant flow of new resources.

As you pull a bottle of fizz out of a tree, a bird flies off one branch, then lands on another.

“Say, mate.”

“Yes?” you ask the bird.

“Mind cracking open a can for me? My feet are a bit tied up at the moment writing a play.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, uh, sure,” you say, popping the top on a can of tropical pie juice.

“Thanks. Oh, by the way. Your lower half’s missing.”

Phase Q: An interactive adventure.