A piece of interactive fiction vs. role-playing game, where you get to suggest the next move and influence how the story progresses.
#16. Aural Stimulation
Tuesday, October 04, 2005 A phonecall is a little too much to handle right now, so you leave it ringing and put it back in your pocket. If Greg wants to leave a message, you'll deal with it later, bigger fish are waiting to be gutted, filleted and fried, and you're still not sure if you're a guppy or Captain Birdseye.You wander into the shopping centre, and find a store locator map, hunt down the list, and find a hifi shop on the 2nd floor. Being in a place where piped musak hangs in the air, and fake plastic plants adorn every walkway seems almost too surreal after the past few hours. Its only still early in the morning, so few people are around, and some of the shops are still closed, but as your rise in the lift two floors up, you can see the audio store and its shutters rolling open, a few young looking staff mingling around the lot.
You go into the store and find a particularly stupid looking zitted employee for help.
"Hi there, i'm looking to try out some headphones"
"Sure, any particular ones in mind?" the boy squeeks, no doubt trying to stabilise his voice pitch shifting from high to low brought on by his hormonally inbalanced state.
"Er.. Yeah, those?" and you point at a large set of headphones hanging on the wall.
The kid grabs the pair and walks you over to an amp set up in one corner of the store.
"I've um.. got my own CD to check it out with.. I'm in a band, and well, they're for that.. so I want to know how it sounds" you say
"Sure" the boy trembles, and takes the CD from you, puts it in a deck, presses a few buttons and hands you the headphones.
You start to hear your own voice:
"You've got the first bit right, now leave the money here, and go to the location circled on the map. Take the SIM card, and put it in a phone. At midnight, call the number in the addressbook, not a minute before. We'll give you the next set of instructions then."
You pass the headphones back to the youth, and take your CD. The next move is down to you.
Check out the locaiton highlighted on the map but try to do it so you can see the location but you're not actually in it, maybe try and get above it, or get in a car near it and hide - surveillance might be the key for the moment....
Find out the number in the phone's addressbook. Is it your own phone number?
If so, put all the stuff back in the bank's safety deposit box and wait until midnight to see if you get a phone call from whoever it is that you appear to be holding to ransom.