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“Want to explore more?” you sign.

“Yes,” she says with four rapid taps on your arm, then turns her hand over to hold yours again.

Looking around, you mostly see dust, floating in the sunbeams shining through the broken windows and settling on every surface.

“I wonder what kind of factory this was,” she signs.

“I think I’ve heard that it produced electronics, circuit components and things,” you sign.

A few scattered piles of broken, rusted metal find their final resting place here. “This is all that’s left of the machines they used. Just rust and decay.”

“The fate of us all...” As you walk around, Akiko touches everything you pass by--steel support pillars, old metal workbenches. You circle around to the back, where the floor abruptly ends and steel cables stretch down into darkness.

“This was the elevator I mentioned,” you sign. “Careful of the hole in the ground.”

She feels around the surrounding steel beams, coming to the old control panel. She presses a button--the building vibrates, filled with noise, as the cables rise up. The old elevator arrives from below, a simple steel platform, covered in dust.

“What was all that?” she signs.

“Amazing,” you sign back, “this place is still powered? After all this time? Why? How?”

“It felt like an elevator,” she signs.

“You felt right. It’s here now.”

Her hands flap in an excited stim. “Let’s see where it goes!” she signs.

“Not sure how safe it is...but it came up alright, the cables all look intact...”

“Then let’s go!” She takes your hand and leads you onto the platform.

“Going down.” You press the button, and the platform moves again, with heavy vibrations, carrying you down into the dark basement.

“What do you think is down there?” she signs.

“98% chance it’s more dust and desolation, small chance remaining that we’ll stumble onto some kind of cult or secret club or terrorist base or state surveillance platform.”

The elevator stops in complete darkness. You activate the light on your terminal, looking around the walls nearby. “Aha!” you say, finding a light switch. As you suspected, some of the lights still work, illuminating before your eyes a huge vault.

“What do you see?” she signs.

“Rows and rows of metal hardware cabinets. More wires than you can imagine. It’s your personal heaven, Akiko.”

She steps off the platform and finds one of the cabinets, feeling the cluster of cables running between all the modules it holds. She wraps herself up in them, looking happier than you’ve ever seen her.

You find her arms amidst the cable spaghetti and sign, “There’s so many, they all seem to be connected. It’s ancient, an analog computer, wow! This is a find!”

“So cool, in its time this must’ve been pretty powerful!” she signs.

At the back end of the corridor of wires, you see something--“There’s a switch in the back, and something written there.”

Akiko extricates herself and brushes the dust off of her uniform. “Let’s go check it out.”

You approach the fixture--a large handle, with an engraved metal plaque--“‘Model 4304 Supercomputer, Main Power,’” you read and sign. Next to it, you see a dust-covered note written on the wall. You clear it off to read. “‘You who wander here, beware. It was shut down for a reason. What is here is dangerous, of no value to you, and best forgotten. Leave now if you value all you hold real.’”

“Well how could we not want to when they put it that way?” Akiko signs.