You experience a sudden disconnect of consciousness.\n\nYour name is Suzy G̪̃̑under͓͔̓́ͥͤͦ͗͠s̷̈́́͊o̵̭̜͊̃ņ̜̋ͯ͗̑̔̚͝͞. You are no particular age, and your history is indistinct and contradictory. At some point you weren't here, and now you are. Traditionally, we would say that you "got" here, implying that there exists a neatly chained series of actions to join the two states. You are pretty sure there exists nothing of the sort. \n\n"Here" is a verdant hillside planted with pink-flowering cherry trees. There is a perfectly round city in the far distance down the hill, filled with fluted minarets and shining glass spires. You're also pretty sure you recognize the Space Needle. White mountains rise beyond the city. The sun must be shining because you can feel its warmth on your skin, but you can't quite seem to tell where it is. The air tastes impossibly clean. \n\nA woman approaches you. \n\n<<replace "Talk to her">>She smiles. "We're glad you're here. This is Ultima, which has always been your home. It is one of many places in the universe that cannot be reached by choice."\n\n<<replace "That sounds familiar...">>"Ultima... like... the magic spell? From FF3?" you say. You think this might be a thing Suzy would say. You aren't sure why; it's certainly not because you've ever played that game. You vaguely sense that it's kind of a dopey thing to say, but you don't think the woman will think less of you for it.\n\nHer benevolent smile is as warming as the sun. She lazily blinks. "You're crossing your references, but that's normal for here. The answer is: 'If you choose.'"\n\n<<replace "You are silent; naturally you have nothing to say.">><<replace "Ego and consciousness drain from you like pus from a lanced boil. It's as if a great pressure has been relieved.">><<replace "You feel clean and beautiful and perfect. You smile, and the woman smiles back.">><<replace "Nothing remains of Suzy Gunderson but a faint sour flavor on the edge of your mouth.">>...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n...\n<<replace "Your tongue lifts from its bed, pricked upwards by a faint sour flavor.">>"I still choose," something says. You are very sure it wasn't you; why would you say anything? But it sounds like it might be a thing Suzy would say.\n\nThe woman looks sad, but still smiles. She nods.\n\n<<replace "Your flesh boils away in a wash of blue flame.">><<replace "It doesn't particularly hurt.">><<replace "You are not at one with the universe.">><<replace "You are Suzy Gunderson.">><<replace "The leaves change color.">>[[You leave the leaves.|real start]] <<endreplace>><<endreplace>><<endreplace>><<endreplace>><<endreplace>><<endreplace>><<endreplace>><<endreplace>><<endreplace>><<endreplace>><<endreplace>><<endreplace>>

You take a deep happy breath, and your shoulders un-hitch a bit. It's been a long and boring day, but you feel more energetic now.\n\nIt's like two hours until Mom gets home and tells you to stop tying up the phone line, so let's not waste any time. You double-click the [[dialer]] and let the modem start squarlking.

It keeps going. No, wait, now there's something less brain-dead. Beside it is a tiny square photo of someone you don't recognize. He looks //old,// at least like 25.\n\n• (picture)\n__Gabriel Robinson invited you to his event Kickstart the new Corpses From the Sea EP!__\non Friday\nTurn off further notifications from Kickstart the new Corpses From the Sea EP!\n__Turn Off__\n__Keep On__\n\nThis means nothing to you, and might not even be English.\n\n[[Keep going]]\n

NUH UH. That is ''definitely a trap.'' For all you know, it's already doing something bad to your computer. Oh god. \n\nYou panic for a second, duck under the desk, and yank the power cord out of the wall. Then you feel a bit silly and plug it back in. \n\nThe computer chugs away into its restart process, then runs SCANDISK for, like, an hour. Mom comes home about halfway through, dropping some bags of groceries on the floor, and wants to use the computer; you tell her it crashed and she has to wait, and she gets mad at you for installing weird crap on it all the time. (Man, you were //good// this time, and this is the thanks? What the hell!)\n\nThe next day when you get home, you go straight to the off-topic board and Railer's thread. The link doesn't work anymore; goes straight to a "server not found" error. No one knows anything more about what in the world that page was, and it sounds like you were the last one able to log in before it went down. You compare notes with Railer and Fetzer and Alsager, although Railer's a bit cagey about what he read there. As far as any of you can tell, it was just a really elaborate prank. \n\nTime passes. Friends drift away, other friends arrive. Schoolwork blurs the days. You keep writing on Ranger's Rest, sometimes. [[Things happen.]]

Blah, blah, blah, etc. etc. \n\nOoh! There's Future Suzy's little face icon. You still feel //really weird// whenever you read something she wrote, but you guess you'd better start getting over that.

You don't know why you eat these. You've never seen Mom touch one to her lips, so she's obviously getting them for you, but you've never really told her you like them? They come from the past-sell-by-date shop in quantity and go into the freeze. The cold dulls the sickening sweetness of them, making the outside shell taste bland and biscuit-y and the interior taste like... whatever.\n\n* [[Huck it]]\n* [[Nah, bring it.]]

<<if $wrote>>That was a pretty solid day's worth of posts, and you can't really do anything else until Miglav makes his next move, so you back out and click over to the off-topic board.<<else>>You're still a bit thrashed from the school day and aren't ready to get into character yet. You click over to the off-topic board.<<endif>> \n\nLooks like the thread where they're [[taunting that elizabot]] is still going strong. \n\nGradiel just got her [[driver's license]]! Rad.\n\nRailer started a new thread called [[What in the world is this?]]

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<<if $warned>>You notice a stack of floppy disks at your elbow. Mom compulsively backs up everything to these, because she's used to her boxy old amber-screen word processor and she doesn't quite believe that hard drives exist. Maybe you should follow her lead for today, just in case this blows up the computer. \n\nYou throw a disk in, and drag this year's school papers and a little bit of video game fanfic onto it. After thinking for a second, you put the disk across the room, just in case, uh... in case __something,__ maybe it'll turn the whole computer into a magnet, you don't know. \n\nOkay.<<else>>Fuckit, we're doing this.<<set $reckless = $reckless + 1>><<endif>> Now or never. You open WinZip and drag the file's contents into a new folder. \n\n* [[Kalisto.exe]]\n* a bunch of [[.dll's]]\n* a <<replace "README.txt.">>README.txt:\n---\nKalisto is a modern web browser for antique Win32 systems. It supports SPDY, most HTML5 and some CSS3 features, and reasonably good Javascript performance. We've thrown out amenities like tabs, plugins, extensions, and audio/video support; the experiment here is to see how far you can pare down WebKit and still end up with something useful. The silly target platform is just to keep us honest. :)\n\n<<replace "kalisto-browser.org">>__kalisto-browser.org__\n\nYou open <<if $opened_kalisto>>Kalisto<<else>>Netscape<<endif>> and try to go to kalisto-browser.org, but it can't find the server.<<endreplace>><<endreplace>>\n* a <<replace "SUZY.txt">>__SUZY.txt__:<<set $read_suzy_txt = true>>\n\nIf you opened this, then I guess you're bolder than I remember being. Which would mean we've already changed the past. I wonder if I'll remember doing this, now?\n\nYou're still looking for a sensible explanation for this, but there isn't one. I'm you, writing from fifteen years in the future. \n\nIf I remember the timing right, the link we used the first time has already stopped working; we're super lucky that this finished downloading at all. The me before me figured out that we could use a different link to get back in, but now the proxy is doing something where you need a web browser from at least 2004. She didn't know that yet, so I couldn't make it work on the last loop. \n\nI think whoever built this system turned it on for a few hours in "old" mode, just long enough to send newer software to their past self, then they flipped it back to "future" mode so //they// could keep using it but anyone who accidentally stumbled on the link (us) would be shut out. But maybe this time we're finally too good at this to be stopped.\n\nLoad up Kalisto and go to __about:jigawatts?loc=173.252.110.27&session=1065782922&lockstep=true&skip=0__, and I'll see you on the other side. \n\nAnd if that doesn't work, I guess wait fifteen years and try something different, like I did. Your next self will log in on November 12, 2012, at around 3:15 AM. You'll want to learn about HTTP proxies, retrocomputing, niche web browsers, sessionjacking, continuous-takeoff open chronal loops, and a guy named Amran Quinn, who runs a shell company in this timeline called Atropos Chronotech. (DO NOT CONTACT HIM. I think a previous loop did that and it went very badly, but we've cycled through enough times that I can't figure out what happened to her.)\n\nGood luck.\n<<endreplace>>

<<silently>>\n<<set $pie = "default">><<set $reckless = 0>><<set $cooperation = 0>>\n<<endsilently>><<display "real start">>

What, are you crazy? That sounds like a GREAT way to send your past self on an educational field trip to a CIA black site. Also, have we forgotten that you're not the only person who knows about time travel, and that the other guys seem to have ''a shitload more resources than you?'' It seems to you that maybe //disrupting the course of the 21st century// could attract some unwanted attention. \n\nYou had probably better start small.\n\n(and then something else happens. -N)

Something is extraordinarily wrong. You and ------- had like half your classes together, but her name is just gone. You can't even remember what her face looked like. \n\nYou can't remember her because you never met her. \n\nYou can feel her absence like a missing tooth, but only just barely.\n\nIt must have been the goddamn cigarettes. You thought cutting them out would just improve your health, but it's erased like half of your memories of college! You've got to backpedal fast, before you forget that there even //was// anything different to remember. \n\nYou comment on the post again. \n\n<<<\nNO WAIT I TAKE IT BACK. You //have// to start smoking by the grates. It's super important.\n<<<\n\nYou sit anxiously waiting for a reply, feeling like your head is coming apart. \n\n<<<\nOkay, listen, I have a serious question for you. Did we go insane or something? \n<<<\n\nGood work! Your teenage self is now pretty sure you've lost your marbles. Well, her marbles. Whoever had them last. \n\nShould you explain what just happened?\n\n* [[Yes|explain]]\n* [[What? No! Hurry up!|hurry]]

Over the next few years, it becomes more and more clear that this is the site you caught a glimpse of in 1997. \n\n(insert more backstory here. -N In particular, I need an excuse for keeping this so self-centered, instead of improving larger scale actual history.\n\n\nBut here's the fragments I've got for one of the early choices on Grown Suzy's path:\n\n- [[Stop 9/11]]\n- [[Don't stop 9/11]]\n- [[Stop smoking]]\n\n)

__Railer:__ An IRL friend passed this on, don't ask me how he got it. [[about:jigawatts?loc=173.252.110.27|first time]] \n\nAnyone? o_o I'm creeped out.\n\n__Larius:__ it looks broken...? i can't figure out how to see the rest of it\n\n__Cabriac:__ I can't even get in, I don't have a password. :( Are you seeing anything past the login page?\n\n__Fetzer:__ it's not even loading anything. what browser?\n\n__Railer:__ Netscape 3.\n\n__Fetzer:__ ok, holy shit, i do not like how it knows my real name. how did it do that???\n\n__Alsager:__ I can't get past the login either. :/ Maybe that's a good thing?? o_o;;\n\n__Alsager:__ OK, I logged in. That password shouldn't work, I never signed up? I don't like this.\n\n__Railer:__ Someone's been doing some research on us. :/

DAY TWO\n\nYour name is Suzy Gunderson, and you may or may not be who you were an hour ago. You can't quite remember. \n\nYour job is mildly horrible, and involves analyzing reports about things you don't care about. It takes a lot of time and doesn't make you a lot of money. Your co-workers are your only notable friends, but you don't like them very much.\n\nYou went to a good college, but it was a lonely and draining experience. You didn't make many friends. \n\nYou're dating someone, but the relationship is a total dead-ender. He isn't interesting at all, and being around him amplifies your worst qualities, especially the passivity and cowardice. In what is almost definitely totally unrelated news, you haven't worked up the initiative to dump him. His name is Jason. You told him you had a stomach bug this weekend. \n\n<<if $pie eq "keep" or $pie eq "default">>You're something of a stress eater, and it's not very good for you. You've been trying to do something about it, but you're starting to worry that the only workable approach is doing something about all the //stress,// which ain't happening.<<endif>>\n\nYou used to write when you were a teenager, but you gave it up a long time ago. You still read a lot, but you can't see yourself ever creating anything interesting.\n\nBut unlike everyone else who hates their lives this much, you've been given the power to //fix everything!// You've made contact with your past self, and you're now one day into your campaign to right your life's wrong turns. You think you have another day or two before the line to the past stops working. \n\nYou already fixed one thing yesterday -- you warned your teenage self not to start smoking in college. You can't remember why, but you did remember your older self telling you the same thing, so you just went with it. You assume it was important. And hey, you've never smoked, so obviously it worked out great!\n\nNow it's time for the next step.

The artist who drew this -- Derek -- used to be a member, but he mostly dropped out. He went away to college, and... the schoolwork must be kicking his butt? Or something.\n\nYou and Derek were part of the team that rescued the scholar Alhambra (back before he went evil), and you used to ICQ a lot. He once told you he was thinking of your character when he drew it, and you were walking on air for days. Mom thought someone at school had asked you out, and seemed disappointed when you excitedly told her about it. You're pretty sure she doesn't understand. That's happening more and more often, lately.\n\nYou've always liked the boots she has on in this picture. You'd love a pair like that yourself, but all your clothes suck and you don't really know where to start looking for clothes that rule. And you don't generally feel awesome about your legs, so the shorts-and-boots look she's rocking maybe isn't a winner for you. Still, though, damn. <<set $sawpicture = true>> \n\n[[range]]\n\n[[rest]]

A few months back, you set the homepage to Ranger's Rest, the bulletin board where you spend, let's be honest, the tiniest bit more time than is healthy. Your mom objected because... well, for some dumb reason. It's not like she even really //uses// the Internet that much. So then she set it to Yahoo, and you objected to that because Yahoo is for fogeys, so now it's Altavista. \n\nYou click a [[bookmark|Ranger's Rest]] that may as well have a hole worn in it by now.

DAY TWO\n\n(insert the "you are suzy" stuff here)\n\nYou think you tried to do something already, buuuuuuut you'reeeeeeee not exactly clear on what happened? There was something about trying to quit smoking, and then there was something horrible? You don't know what it was, though; you just remember your older self going on about it. You wanted to \n\n....(not sure where else I was going w/ this, but i'll have to follow up eventually. -NF)

You sift back through your memory. You told yourself you shouldn't start smoking just to hang out with ----- and -------, so...\n\nWait. What's that about? Their [[names|smoke lucky]] are right on the tip of your tongue, but, like...\n\nWhy can't [[you|smoke unlucky]] remember?

You can feel the last memories of your friends slipping out of your mind like goldfish flitting through your fingers. \n\n<<<\nSuzy, please, I'm begging you, just do it. It's more important than we could have known.\n<<<\n\nYou hit return.\n\n...Wait, //what's// more important? Why? And why were you two talking about smoking, anyway? You've never smoked.\n\n<<<\n...Okay, if it's really that important. I've gotta say, though, this isn't what I thought talking with my future self would be like.\n<<<\n\n[[You start itching for a cigarette.|smoke nullify]]

You got out of bed, opened your laptop, and yeah okay we'll cut to the chase. \n\n<html><img src="thefacebook.jpg" alt="Logo: thefacebook.com"></html>\n\nIt was a bit off, but... close. Real close. Eerily close.\n\nYou couldn't prove anything. [[But you kept an eye out.]]

...it's just a bunch of bulletin board posts by people you don't know. Huh.\n\nAw, and it's not even a cool bulletin board. The posts are all just boring nonsense. Someone's talking about the run they just went on. Here's someone else's dinner. Here's one with a picture: "30 Places You Must Visit Before You Die." Wait, is that actually another advertisement? You can't quite tell, but you don't think that guy wrote it. What a mess! This is worse than the AOL forums. You don't see anyone talking about books or video games at all.\n\nAlso, you're itching to keep exploring, but you feel like you should probably be looking for something from your future self. \n\n* [[Keep scrolling]]\n* [[Try the controls at the top]]\n* [[Try the controls at the side]]\n

[[Thunk.|real start]]

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Wait, hold ON a second. Are you really going to click that?\n\n* [[click it]]\n* [[hell no]]\n

The bus grumbles away and you trudge across the road through its wake, puffing air out through your nose at the smell of diesel exhaust.\n\nYou open the front door with the [[key]] under the rock. Drop your overloaded [[backpack]] behind the couch. Grab a rock-frozen Hostess [[pie]] from the chest freezer in the basement. You [[sit down at the computer.]] \n\n[[warp (for debugging. -N)|warp]]

Huh. You don't remember signing up for this, but your password worked.\n\nLarius was right, it does look broken. Plain white background, Times New Roman. Everything's crammed off on one side, like they haven't even //heard// of tables. Some of the text is repeated. There are some very abstract animated GIFs, just repeated throbbing circles.\n\n''Facebook''\n\n0 //Requests//\n\n ''Friend Requests''\n Find Friends • Settings\n ''Friend Requests''\n (throbber)\n __See All__\n\n0 //Messages//\n\n''Messages;''\n\n__Send a New Message__\n\n''__InboxOther__''\n • (throbber)\n__Show Older__\n__See All__\n\n0 //Notifications//\n''Notifications''\n__Settings__\n''Notifications''\n\n[[?????]]\n

Go big or go home, right? You're going to stop multiple wars, save tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of lives, and rewrite one shitty-ass decade. \n\n(This goes horribly wrong but I didn't write the details yet. -N)

When you get yours next year, the [[Rest|rest]] is the first place you'll go to talk about it. Anyway, you congratulate her.

<<set $warned = true>>You're feeling antsy but cautious. Best check back in on the thread before you unzip anything dangerous.\n\n__Rest > What in the world is this?__\n\nBefore you scroll down, you click on the link again, just to see; it is way totally dead and gives you a "server not found" error. Huh.\n\nThere are more posts. \n\n---\n\n__Rysara:__ I got in, and there was a nice little note waiting from my evil doppelganger. I'm downloading the file she sent me. Thinking I might make a huge mistake and install it later. \n\nI think I'm flattered that someone made a message board where they could RP as //us,// but what the hell?\n\n__Larius:__ lol is that what's going on? wtf\n\n__Devaros:__ Rysara, plz tell me it's fulla Fetzer/Alsager slashfic. o^o (<-- can't get in either, alas)\n\n__Alsager:__ Don't you already have a lifetime supply? Anyway, no such luck. It was kind of boring, actually. Rysara, you got a file? What was it?\n\n__Fetzer:__ hup, it stopped working. wtf. maybe they saw our thread and got frighted. \n\nwell if they aren't watching anymore, then *makes sloppy kisses w alsager*\n\n__Railer:__ Mine wasn't boring but I don't want to talk about it. It was a sick joke. Sounds like no one else's was as bad, tho. Rysara, be careful with whatever you're downloading from these clowns, they aren't very nice. \n\n---\n\nWell, whatever's going on with Railer, you're still really curious.\n\n---\n\n__Rysara:__ I'll be careful, Railer. Thanks. *hugs*\n\n---\n\n* [[Kalisto]]

Well, let's not give up on this project just yet. Maybe just telling you not to smoke didn't work because it was too vague. Come to think of it, tons of other people told you not to smoke, and that didn't do anything either. \n\nMaybe if you could be more specific. How //did// you start smoking, anyway? \n\nOh, right! OK, new message:\n\n<<<\nIt seems gross now, but it won't later. The thing to remember is, don't start smoking just to hang out with those guys who hang out by the grates outside your dorm freshman year. \n<<<\n\nShe replies.\n\n<<<\nOK... well, that doesn't sound like me at all, but sure: don't start smoking by the grates in college. I'll remember.\n\nHey, I just had a thought! What college do I end up going to? If I know where I end up anyway, I can ignore all the boring school counselor shit and just do the one application!\n<<<\n\nHmm, that school counselor shit //was// pretty soul-sucking. You think for a second about whether that might have unintended consequences. ...Nah, seems legit. You go ahead and tell her. \n\nMeanwhile, you're wondering whether that did the trick on the cigarettes. The last few times you changed something, it seems like you eventually remembered it from back when it happened, but you also remembered //not// having remembered it. (Ow, you think you just sprained something.) You're hoping it'll be similar this time. \n\n[[Remember|Smoking is important]]\n

Suzy Gunderson\n__about an hour ago__\n(picture)\nSuzy Gunderson\n\n<<replace "HEY SELF.">>HEY SELF.\n\n<<replace "SUZY.">>SUZY.\n\nI want to explain, but we don't have time yet. Whoever runs this thing is about to notice the config problem and fix the hole. We need to move to a clean session, but for some reason browsers from 1997 can't do that.\n\nDon't keep scrolling, please please please. You need to [[download this and install it]], quickly. You'll know what to do next. <<endreplace>><<endreplace>>

...which, //like we just said,// you decided was an elaborate prank and forgot about. For about seven years.\n\nIn early 2005, the boy you were subletting from got mono and bailed out of his study abroad, which gave you about four days to find a new place to live. Lainey told you — co-worker-at-the-cafe-Lainey, not music-department-Lainey — that Elizabeth Jacobs had just broken up with her boyfriend and kicked him out, which meant she was short on rent money and looking for a subletter. You didn't have her phone number, though, and plus you couldn't remember if she was the Elizabeth you got into a screaming drunken fight with in the Donner courtyard freshman year, so you kind of wanted to see a picture of her before cold-calling. (Was that chick even an Elizabeth? Elspeth? Wow, you can't even remember. Fuck everything about that semester.)\n\nShe wasn't in the campus photo directory, but Lainey said you should try this new website that was basically just... another... campus photo directory?? Okay, whatever. You signed up, found Elizabeth's page (she wasn't the one you were worried about), gave her a call, and moved into her spare room for the rest of senior year.\n\nA few weeks later, you woke up in the middle of the night, something nagging at you. [[Wasn't there something familiar about that name?]]

You have never understood what a .dll is. You don't know why you even clicked that. \n\n<<return>>

HOW DO THEY KNOW YOUR NAME?\n\n<<if $sawpicture>>The only person on Ranger's Rest who knew your name was Derek, and he's gone at college and hasn't talked to you for months. And he couldn't have guessed your password. <<else>>No one on Ranger's Rest knows your real name. Who could have made this?<<endif>>\n\nAnd who the hell is that in the picture? She's not you. You don't think she's you. She's old. You think. The picture is really tiny. Maybe if you could see it bigger...?\n\n• (picture) [[Suzy Gunderson]]\n• Voice\n• Home\n• //__Privacy Shortcuts__//\n

More faces you don't recognize. This one invited you to another event. This one "Liked your post." (What? Like a post on a bulletin board? How do they know she liked it, are they doing a survey?)\n\nBlah blah blah blah--\n__Show Older__ (throbber)\n__See All__\n(Search for people, places and things)\n\n[[...|Your name]]

Welcome to warp zone.\n\nVariables:\n\n* pie: <<cyclinglink $pie "default" "huck" "keep">>\n* reckless: <<cyclinglink $reckless 0 1>>\n* wrote: <<cyclinglink $wrote true false>>\n* sawpicture: <<cyclinglink $sawpicture true false>>\n* warned: <<cyclinglink $warned true false>>\n\nPlaces:\n\n* [[teen|click it]]\n* [[grown|hell no]]\n* [[Smoking|Stop smoking]] (last week)\n* [[smoke lucky]] (← HEY TEAM STORYTIME, here's this week)

Fuck it. If this is some hacker pranking on you, they at least made it interesting. You straighten your back, give a mock salute, and click the link. \n\nSave As... \n\n[kalisto_1.6.0b1_staticlibs.zip]\n\n...\n\n[||......................................]\n\nHoly balls, that's 7.2 MB. It's HUGE. This is going to take forever. \n\n<<replace "You fidget anxiously, bouncing your leg against the computer desk.">>You go back to the Rest, and post in Railer's thread:\n\n__Rysara:__ I got in, and there was a nice little note waiting from my evil doppelganger. I'm downloading the file she sent me. Thinking I might make a huge mistake and install it later. \n\nI think I'm flattered that someone made a message board where they could RP as //us,// but what the hell?\n\n---\n\n<<replace "You wait.">><<replace "And wait some more.">>Man, maybe it's time to ask Mom to upgrade this modem. 33.6k would be really nice at a time like this.\n\n[[transfer complete]]\n<<endreplace>><<endreplace>><<endreplace>>

<<if $opened_kalisto>>\nYou go back to the Kalisto window. \n<<else>>\nLike you were expecting, it's a web browser. Takes a little longer to start than Netscape. Okay, a lot longer.\n\nOoh, it's kind of shiny. Instead of big chunky buttons for back and forward, it has little glistening chiclets with triangles in them. THE FUTURE IS HERE.\n\nOnce it's up, you go to Ranger's Rest and look around a bit. Everything looks and acts pretty much normal.<<endif>>\n<<set $opened_kalisto = true>>\n\n<<if $read_suzy_txt>>\nOK. You take a deep breath, and paste in [[about:jigawatts?loc=173.252.110.27&session=1065782922&lockstep=true&skip=0|facebook]]. You are still pretty sure this is all an elaborate prank.\n<<else>>\nYou try going to __about:jigawatts?loc=173.252.110.27__. It can't find the server. Huh. \n\nWhat were those other files? Maybe there's a clue. \n\n<<return>>\n<<endif>>

The screen door rattles, and a key turns in the lock. Welp, Mom's home.\n\nYou quickly alt-F4 all the Netscape windows, right-click on the modem icon to disconnect, and drag //kalisto_1.6.0b1_staticlibs.zip// into the "Suzy's Sewage" folder so it won't confuse Mom. \n\nYou go help her put the groceries away. She makes tacos for dinner.\n\n[[Day 2.]]

You arrive at the login page. FACEBOOK, it says, in white-on-blue letters. You [[log in]].

It has a shiny pink plastic gem-thing embedded in it. Dad let you choose it when they were getting it duped at the hardware store. You were thrilled. \n\nThinking about things that thrilled you when you were twelve makes you not thrilled. Whatever, you're going [[inside|real start]].

Untitled mid-90s internet time travel story

[[girl]] (so, eventually this page should be a mock-up of the RR front page, and the "girl" link is the clickable logo. -N)\n\nForums:\n\n[[range]]\n\n[[rest]]

I need some opening live-ish convo between grown and teen Suzy. \n\nEstablish the protocols of how they message each other, stuff like that. \n\nI think TS is going to have a lot of bad habits, like forgetting to set posts to private and confusing all her grown friends.

Your name is Suzy Gunderson, and you are about to make what is probably a horrible mistake.\n\n<<set $warned = false>>You're distracted through the whole school day, of course. \n\nKey, backpack<<if $pie eq "keep" or $pie eq "default">>, pie<<endif>>, computer, <<replace "dialer—">>dialer.\n\n<<display "modem">>\n\n* [[Kalisto]]\n* [[Netscape]]\n<<endreplace>>

Nah, it'll delay real hunger, so you can stay at the computer a bit longer. <<set $pie = "keep">>\n\n[[sit down at the computer.]]\n

You look at the pie in disgust, and straight-up throw it in the trash. Wow, that was actually kind of cold-blooded; you feel pretty awesome. Mom might get on your ass about wasting "food," though, so you flick a paper towel over it in the trash. (Okay, apparently you don't feel //that// cold-blooded.) <<set $pie = "huck">>\n\n[[sit down at the computer.]]\n

Your name is Suzy Gunderson. Your primary hobby is dissatisfaction. Your job is mildly horrible, and involves analyzing reports about things you don't care about. It takes a lot of time and doesn't make you a lot of money. \n\nYou went to a good college and really enjoyed it, but it didn't lead to any of the things you were kind of hoping it would. You feel a bit like someone pulled something over on you, but you can't quite articulate how. You've also drifted away from most of the friends you had back then, and these days, you mostly just hang out with your co-workers, whom you don't like very much. \n\nYou aren't married. You aren't dating. The lukewarm and uninteresting relationship you've been in for the last three years just came to a very not-lukewarm and excitingly destructive end. You are more than a little bit proud of that last part, which you have to admit is kind of fucked up, but being nothing but lukewarm for three years will do that to you. \n\n<<if $pie eq "keep" or $pie eq "default">>You're something of a stress eater, and it's not very good for you. You've been trying to do something about it, but you're starting to worry that the only workable approach is doing something about all the //stress,// which ain't happening.<<endif>>\n\nYou used to write a fair amount, but haven't been doing it lately. You're too tired on account of the temporary situation at work... is what you tell your friends and family. What you worry privately is that you were never actually good at it, and are fundamentally unsuited to doing real creative work. For the last 18 months, you've been about a third of the way through what you've come to recognize as a truly trite and useless novel. \n\nYou don't think there's very much interesting about you. You are ordinary, and ordinarily tragic. You are the symptom, not the disease.\n\nThere is one bona-fide interesting thing about you, which is that about fifteen years ago, you [[saw something weird on the internet.]]

__User:__ Was Alsager in here earlier? He'd better not have been talking about my mom. \n__MegaHAL:__ FETZER'S MOM IS EXTREMELY HOT AND DENSE, POWERED BY THERMONUCLEAR FUSION.\n__User:__ God dammit.\n__MegaHAL:__ DAMMIT JIM, I'M A DOCTOR, NOT A BRICK HOUSE, THE LADY'S STACKED AND THAT'S A FACT.\n\n[[Aw, good ol' MegaHAL.|rest]]\n

<<display "modem">>\n\n<<replace "Netscape">><img src="./netscape3_load.png">\n\n...\n...\n...\n[[Homepage]]<<endreplace>>

<<set $wrote = true>> You aren't really sure what to call Ranger's Rest, so you mostly don't talk to people about it, but it's your favorite thing.\n\nYou played AD&D a few times back in middle school, with Steve and his friends, but you weren't really into it — you thought you were going to be (the covers on the books!), but saying your lines out loud in your squeaky voice just made it all seem chintzy and fake, and everyone else's lines were //so bad,// and you didn't like how keeping track of all the rules and junk felt like a chore. And then Jarrell's mom got all freaked out about Satanism and everybody except you doubled down and got serious about playing every day on the bus just to show her that you can't keep a lawful good half-elf down, which you had to recognize was pretty cool but you ducked out anyway. \n\nANYWAY. Ranger's Rest is not chintzy and fake. You won't ever say this out loud to anyone, but it reminds you of playing Ninja Turtles or whatever with your toys when you and Matt were kids, and the stories kept building on each other and getting cooler. (With a little distance, you can now admit that April O'Neil did in fact end up totally over-powered.) Except it doesn't get too top-heavy and fall apart, because everybody is serious about it, and it's //solid// because it's all written down where everyone can see it, and if it makes sense in the story for someone to die to save their friends, their player will totally write them dead and they won't come back, //ever,// unless it would be really tragic and creepy and awesome and sad, in which case, like, maybe. \n\nIt all plays out on a bulletin board, and everyone replies to threads and the threads turn into scenes. You originally found the place when you were replying to threads as Rydia on a Final Fantasy forum; a few people got annoyed, but one guy (who plays Virog here at RR) was totally cool about it and suggested you give this other place a try. \n\nLast time you logged off, you left Rysara the Fire-Washed tromping through the underbrush with Devaros the Vain, with whom she has a tickle-and-slap sort of relationship. Their mission: most urgent. You spend a solid 45 minutes writing campfire banter, as the two of them wait for it to get dark enough to enter the Cave of Miglav. \n\n[[girl]]\n\n[[rest]]

Yeah, as //if// you're going to not click that. \n\n//__Facebook logo__//\n\nEmail or Phone\n\n<<replace "--------------">>__rysara@hotmail.com__<<endreplace>>\n\nPassword\n\n<<replace "--------------">>__********__\n\n[[Log In]]<<endreplace>>

More broken-looking crammed-to-the-side boilerplate. You're starting to get the hang of this, so you scroll down like eight pages. \n\nTimelineAboutFriends255Photos38...\n\nThere. There's a bigger picture of her. \n\nNow that you look closer, she... \n\n...well, she's not //you,// but she could be a police sketch artist's reconstruction of you. She has your matte rodent-brown hair, straight and not quite shoulder-length. Her nose has a bit more hook to it. She's kind of chubby. She's old, but younger than your mom. Maybe like 30. You can see some wrinkles around her eyes. The eye color is right. \n\n[[this is weird]]

It takes a while to load; tons of little bitty images. \n\nWell, Kalisto must be working its magic, because the babbly repeated text from before is gone, and everything isn't crammed off on the left. Clearly these people do, in fact, Know About Tables.\n\nIt doesn't even look like a website anymore. It looks like... y'know, a //program.// A complicated one. \n\nThere's a bunch of inscrutable little controls on the left, and more on the top. The things on the right might be advertisements. One of them says "Try The Celebrity Diet Trick That Helps You Burn Bellyfat Quick Without Any Exercise," so... maybe in the future the magazines in the grocery store checkout line will just invade every part of the internet. //That's// depressing. The internet was supposed to be better than other places. :( Or, y'know, at least better than the Safeway. Another ad says "Be a Game Tester in Oregon," though, and you might actually click that later.\n\nIt looks like the middle column is where the action is at, so you start reading and [[scrolling]].

No way. \n\n• (picture) __Suzy Gunderson__\n• Voice\n• Home\n• //__Privacy Shortcuts__//\n\nNo //fucking// way. 0_0\n\n[[Who?]]

Nick Fagerlund

Well, if you're gonna put right what once went wrong, these goddamn cigarettes seem like a no-brainer. You've known you need to quit for years, and ever since you broke things off with Jason you've been resenting their authority over you more and more. \n\nYou're already itching a bit for your next one. What if you just... didn't have it? In fact, what if you hadn't had the //last// thirty thousand, either? \n\nYou open a new post on your timeline, making sure to twiddle the lock thingy to "private:"\n\n<<<\nFirst advice: Never start smoking. It goes badly.\n<<<\n\nIn a few minutes, a reply appears:\n\n<<<\n"What? Of course not. Smoking is gross. Don't worry about it."\n<<<\n\nYou wait. The itch isn't going away. In fact, it's still getting worse. You grind your teeth a bit and jiggle your foot against the chair. You're having trouble concentrating. \n\nYou give up and go outside to smoke a cigarette. \n\n[[So, like... what?]]

<html><img src="handshake.png" alt="Waveform of a modem handshake sound" width="606" height="216" title="SKRRLLLLKKQQQQCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTT"></html>

You come back inside and sit back down. So, //that// did nothing. What the hell? \n\nMaybe it's one of those parallel timelines things? Where you changed things for another version of you but you won't get to enjoy it yourself? Your stomach drops a bit at that one. \n\nBut, no, hold on. You strain a bit. You think maybe you //do// remember... //vaguely//... that your older self said something about smoking. And it seemed really out of the blue, because you were SO not the kind of person who smoked. And then, uh... you started smoking in college anyway. \n\nYour message got through, all right; it just didn't do shit. Maybe it's time to consider the possibility that your past self is an idiot. \n\n- [[Give up on this, let's do something else]]\n- [[Keep trying with the smoking]]

You definitely owe it to yourself to not just boss young Suzy around; it's gonna be, like, //years// before anyone else is gonna treat her like an adult, and damned if you're gonna pile on too. \n\nBetter type quickly, though, because your head is feeling weirder and weirder.\n\n<<<\nIt was our friends.\n<<<\n\nYou hit send and your mind clears, just the tiniest bit.\n\n<<<\nIt must be some butterfly effect or something. Once we never started smoking, we never met our best friends, either. I can't remember their names anymore.\n<<<\n\nYou hit send. You spend another few moments straining to remember something, anything, then add another message:\n\n<<<\n...Or remember anything we did together, or even how many friends we're talking about here. I think the only reason I remember that there even //was// anything to remember is because I just told you about it, so now I remember //that.//\n<<<\n\nYou wait. A message appears. \n\n<<<\nYIKES.\n<<<\n\nYou blink. That's all she sent? You don't remember being quite that //succinct// as a teen, but—\n\n<<<\nOh oops, I forgot that in the future line breaks are illegal and the government controls all return keys.\n<<<\n\nYou wait.\n\n<<<\nGOD DAMMIT, I did it again. Okay, so, let me get this straight. You're saying that if we don't start smoking, which is dumb and which we end up hating anyway, then we don't ever meet our best friends in college?\n<<<\n\n(...and then it'll keep going from here with more interaction. But for now, it's sunday night and I'm signing off. -NF)

You keep scrolling down. Her picture repeats a few more times, beside more nonsense. \n\nTimeline\nTimeline\nAbout\nNow\nNow\n2012\n2011\n2010\n2009\n2008\n2007\n2006\n2005\nBorn\n\nHighlights\nHighlights\nAll Stories\nActivity Log...\n\nStatus\nPhoto\nPlace\nLife Event\n\nPublic\nStatus\nPhoto\nPlace\nLife Event\n\nDrag Link/Photos HereDrop LinkDrop PhotoDrop Photos\n\nTag People\nAdd date\nTag action\nFriends\nPublic\nFriends (+)\nOnly Me (+)\nCustom\n\n(What //is// this crap?)\n\nSuzy Gunderson\n\n[[about an hour ago]]