Conversation · Logic

Nothing jumps out to you. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Hmm, but Soona said they haven't been honest with me...

Haven't they? Or maybe it's that mean programmer herself who's been lying to you...

How about you get out and breathe -- the air in the tent is too thick for you to think clearly.

Really? Because I could swear something's not adding up here.

You close your eyes and dream of the shapes your body should form to bring this strange music into life. For now, such ferocity of motion is beyond you...

...but just imagine the moves you could pull to this futuristic beat!

Your aching leg doesn't want you to imagine anything, however. It just wants to lie down and rest.

"I hope you're not trying to dance with that leg of yours," the lieutenant says, worried. "Healing from a gunshot wound takes time and patience. Be careful."

Puts a grin on your face just to think about it. Even a failed attempt gets the juices flowing and repairs some of the damage done by battles lost. If you up the dose and TRULY DANCE, who knows what will happen?

SALVATION!

You close your eyes and vacate your skull, leaving your brain to wonder: where did that little fluttering light go?

TOTAL DARKNESS! You sink down the darkest fathoms of your own personal deep, vertebrae by vertebrae -- THROUGH THE UNFORMED SKULLS OF YOUR SPINE.

HERE IT WILL BEGIN.

Where did the church go?

"WHO FUCKING CARES?!"

I hate waking life. I hate this world. I hate and fear everything. All I want is to dance... Please god, just let me dance!

GOD?

WHERE IS YOUR GOD?

I'm scared.

GOOD. YOU SHOULD BE.

Good.

No. NOT GOOD.

ORGASMIC!!!

What was that about unformed skulls?

Psst. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. Every vertebrae in your spine is an unformed skull ready to pop up and replace the old one. Like shark teeth. The one you're currently in has a little brain forming in it. Waiting for its turn...

...to rule the world.

As it ought to be. Where is it?

IN THE SPINAL CORD!

What is happening?

From what I can see, it's about to BUST A MOVE.

What do you want?

I'm ready.

Good. Because from what I can see, it's about to BUST A MOVE.

Oh my god, is that true?

Yes. It's all true -- in the SPINAL CORD.

Who are you?

I am the spinal cord!

Don't bust a move.

No one cares. The move will bust itself. Resistance only makes the move more futuristic.

With your eyes still closed, the first thing you feel, all the way back in the pivoting darkness of your own torso, is warmth. You have become a triumph of rhythmo-plastics -- somewhere in a smelly wooden church on the coast of Revachol. The wounds from the war you've waged on your body are healing, twist by twist, turn by turn.

You must have touched upon an entirely new way of moving the human body! Every motion is pumping your brain full of endorphins... Open your eyes to the pioneering glory of HARD STYLE!

As you open your eyes, you should scream "HYPER! HYPER!" (It seems appropriate.)

Open your eyes and dance like you've never danced before.

You have become a flawless interlocking mechanism. A flesh-and-bone approximation of the throb coming from the speaker set-up of the one called Egg Head's. Entirely, rigidly imbecilic. Without pity or fear.

Free from self-awareness. No deliberation, only -- and I mean only -- execution.

"Oh my god..." The speedfreaks' would-be leader stands slack-jawed in disbelief at the hard-coreness on display. He whispers to himself: "No way..."

"Yes way."

With his reel-to-reel mixer blasting the anthem of a future that will never come, the young man observes your moves for a second...

... then blasts into the same hideous pattern, yelling: "AAAAAAHHHH!"

He throws a screwdriver and a bunch of drill chucks into the corner and explodes into dance. What he lacks in sharpness, he more than makes up for in violent enthusiasm.

"Guys, I'm out of juice..." (Stop.)

You might be imagining it but it feels like Egg Head turned the volume down. Such is his respect.

"Man... now... now, man... now..." The would-be leader stutters with excitement.

"Now imagine if we could do that, right? But with, like, a thousand people?"

"End of human development. Mission. Complete."

"Yes. My mission here is complete." [Leave.]

"Hope I remember those moves, man!"

"Don't worry, man. I'll remember them."

"Right ecstatic!"