<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title> Erosion </title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="html_resources/style.css"></head><body><a href="index.html"><button class="back"><</button></a>
<h1>Erosion</h1>
<p>
<span class="quote speech">Morning Michelle!</span><br />
<span class="quote speech">Ugh.</span><br />
She feels dizzy and her body is filled with a burning sensation.
She takes a step out of her preservation chamber and sits down on the
floor in front of it, putting her arms over her knees to rest her head.
<br />
<span class="quote speech">I'm gonna ... need a moment.</span><br />
<span class="quote speech">Water?</span><br />
She lifts her head and Jack hands her a glass. After taking a couple sips,
she sets it down, unsure whether it helps or makes it worse, and rests
her head again.<br />
<span class="quote speech">Just let me sit here for a moment.</span><br />
After a while, she lifts her head again.<br />
<span class="quote speech">So what year is it? ... and what's our
mission?</span><br />
<span class="quote speech">Twenty-one-oh-six. We don't have a
mission, uplink's dead.</span><br />
<span class="quote speech">You're kidding.</span><br />
<span class="quote speech">Nope.</span><br />
<span class="quote speech">How'd you get woken up then?</span><br />
<span class="quote speech">Technical failure.</span><br />
<span class="quote speech">You survived that?</span><br />
<span class="quote speech">That was the least of my challenges.</span>
<br />
Jack recounts his side of the events of the past <span class="comment">
amount of time</span> as well as some of the things he had read about in
the logs or talked about with Annie.
</p>
<p class="comment">missing section</p>
<p>
They step outside and, following what remains of the old path, start
walking. It is narrow and winded, overgrown, and has partially
disappeared. Jack walks ahead, only half following the path, half making
it up as he goes. Michelle struggles to follow, slowly falling behind.
</p>
<p>
After a while, Jack stops abruptly, looking down at something, then up,
then down again. Then, he turns to Michelle who is catching up to him
and says: <span class="quote speech">Well, that could be a reason why
the uplink is down – it literally <i>is down</i>...</span>.
Michelle reaches the edge and and sees what Jack had stopped for:
A huge ravine estends towards the top of the mountain where a landslide
had left nothing but a cliff and a huge pile of rubble. At the top of
the mountain, teetering on the edge, are two buildings – all
that's left of the ground station. The rest of the buildings and
the dish lay strewn around in pieces down below.
</p>
<p class="copyright">Copyright © 2023 Jan Danielzick (aka. BodgeMaster) – All rights reserved.</p><script>let spans = ["<span class=\"paper green\">", "<span>"]; let pre_texts = document.getElementsByTagName("pre"); for (let i = 0; i < pre_texts.length; i++) {if (pre_texts[i].className != "paper") continue; let lines = pre_texts[i].innerHTML.split("\n"); let result = ""; for (let j = 0; j < lines.length; j++) {result = result + spans[j%2] + lines[j] + " ".repeat(80-lines[j].length) + "</span>\n";} pre_texts[i].innerHTML = result;}</script></body></html>