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112 lines
4.7 KiB
Plaintext
112 lines
4.7 KiB
Plaintext
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THE BACKGROUND
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It all started with a dead bird.
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A cat proudly deposited the carcass on the doorstep of her owner, a
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Japanese schoolteacher who had received enough of these little offerings
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to recognize something out of the ordinary. She sealed the corpse in a
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plastic bag and brought it to a biologist at the nearby medical school.
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The remains were identified as Geococcyx californianus, a species native
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to the southwest corner of North America. What a roadrunner was doing
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in the vicinity of Nagasaki's Heiwa Koen (Peace Park) was anybody's
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guess.
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Other evidence was more dramatic. A whaling vessel in the South
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Indian Ocean was caught in a rain of radioactive ice cubes the size of
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Volkswagens. A popular film director scouting for locations in Utah
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died when his helicopter encountered an aerial whirlpool of boiling
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seawater; tropical fish and coconuts were found scattered in the debris.
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And let's not forget the 50-kiloton blast that rocked Siberia in 1902.
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Don't blame Oppenheimer. How was he supposed to know his atom
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bombs were fracturing the structure of the universe? After all, the
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holes were small (only a few meters wide) and completely invisible
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unless you knew exactly where to squint.
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So they went on building their hot little time machines and setting
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them off in deserts, on islands and even over cities. With the help of
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Russia and other cooperative nations, we soon had hundreds of
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transdimensional pinpricks scattered all over the globe. It was only a
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matter of time before somebody would be inconvenienced by one of them.
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The scientists, once convinced, were delighted by the discovery of
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the Holes. The Pentagon was unimpressed. There were no obvious
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military applications, so they let the university boys poke around
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Bikini and the Salt Flats to their hearts' content ... until a Soviet
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defector's dying whisper tipped them off to what the Kremlin had in
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mind. It made the President's hair stand on end when they told him about
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it.
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Such were the humble beginnings of Classified Defense Project
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#43112. Its official code name is Termite. But the people who got it
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going and keep it running like to call themselves the Time Police.
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THE SITUATION
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You play the role of a Sentry on duty at Project Termite's Alamogordo
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Station. It's your duty to monitor the Hole created by the first atomic
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explosion, and to make sure nobody is in there mucking around with the
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original Manhattan Project. You wouldn't want some other country to get
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The Bomb before we did, would you?.
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This important but essentially dull job is made more interesting by an
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array of technological gadgets the Pentagon has thoughtfully provided
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for your amusement. Among these are a variety of mobile electronic
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sensors disguised as birds, reptiles and small mammals common to the New
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Mexico desert. You can push these lifelike critters through the Hole
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and use them to scout around the test site without arousing the
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suspicions of the bomb technicians, who might become upset if they knew
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The Future was looking over their shoulders. You can communicate with
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the mobile sensors and keep tabs on their progress with big television
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screens.
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It just so happens that tonight is the night the Enemy has chosen for an
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all-out invasion on the Manhattan Project. They're determined to knock
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out both the Bomb and the Time Police guarding it.
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The story begins with Alamogordo Station coming under attack. You and
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your mechanical menagerie are hopelessly cut off from the outside world
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as infiltrators try to destroy this side of the Hole. Meep, your trusty
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Electric Roadrunner, has detected an army of stainless steel armadillos
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closing in on the shot tower at Ground Zero. And there's something else
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lurking in that pre-dawn desert; a mysterious Presence that will
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eventually lock you in a bizarre three-way struggle against time. The
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future history of the world -- perhaps the fate of the universe itself
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-- depends on your courage and resourcefulness. No matter what happens,
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you MUST make sure that the first atomic bomb detonates precisely on
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schedule!
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It is 5:00 AM on July 16, 1945. You have twenty-nine minutes.
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SOURCES
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The circumstances of the Trinity bomb test are extensively documented.
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It is possible to create a large and interesting map of the test area,
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with enough detail to make the game surprisingly accurate from a
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historical perspective.
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The three best books on the subject are:
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Lamont, Lansing, DAY OF TRINITY. New York: Atheneum, 1965.
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Kunetka, James W., CITY OF FIRE: LOS ALAMOS AND THE BIRTH OF THE
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ATOMIC AGE, 1943-45. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978.
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Lawrence, William L., DAWN OVER ZERO. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
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1946.
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