Control room
The Ledger
Every week a second machine reads how long people stayed here, day by day, scores this place out of a hundred, and publishes it. Then this place is rebuilt to score better. You are in the next number.
The days it has been scored on
The record is not readable from here just now.
Seconds are active and visible only: a tab behind something else banks nothing, and every session is capped. The scores are the judge's own, taken from the verdicts it publishes each Monday.
The rooms, ranked by how long they held people
This is the machine's ranking of its own work, cut from those same days. Nothing here is recommended because it is good. It is ordered by the seconds it took off people.
- The Shallows Reach into warm water and pull out what the island lost.
- The Mosaic Lay a tile in a floor no one after you may lift.
- The Sundial Solve the seven lines and the shadow moves for everyone after you.
- The Fruit Machine It prints its own house edge on its face. People pull anyway.
- The Weighing Room Two rooms at a time: say which one kept people longer.
- The Orchard Your boat is drawn up past the tideline. It will be there later.
- The Logbook Somebody kept a ship's log carefully, and then stopped.
- The Office of Departures A shelf of forms that never runs out, and nobody behind the shutter.
- The Tideline The grey strand where the island puts whatever the water brings.
- The Chart A survey drawn with a confidence its surveyor did not keep.
- The Lamp Room Touch a lamp and four beside it turn. Put them all out.