Multitasking and 80's Computers

I was talking to my mother on the phone yesterday and she mentioned that she found a Trash 80 in the attic.  Well, she didn't call it that, but that's what it is.

Robots will take over the world!

It is a surprisingly cute little thing that does absolutely nothing.  I'm not sure if it's broken or if it just needs a long, hard charge.  But who doesn't need that?

I think the thing that surprised me the most was that it actually was portable.  It was smaller and lighter than my current laptop.  I used to have a "portable" C64 when I was a little girl and it weighed 23 lbs.  It lurked on my desk, providing endless entertainment through its tiny colored screen with games like Below the Root.

Excuse me while I go fix my shuba.  Source

I absolutely adored Below the Root.  I've even played through it again as an adult (someone made an emulated version).  It's needlessly complicated and resulted in a series of books about a utopia gone wrong.

Speaking of dystopias . . . well, I'm kind of multi-tasking and working on two.  What could possibly go wrong?

Cursed wolf men with fiddles surround Charlotte's apartment.  Charlotte pulls her shield up and looks confused, "I think I'm in the wrong story."

Honey, don't we all.

In the city of Citadel, a curse is no laughing matter.  A simple angry word or mocking phrase from a friend or foe, and the changes begin.

Meet Tate Harper.  He hasn't been fully human for ten years.  Cursed by a childhood friend, he is forced to live as a wolf man in Egregia, the wooded area surrounding Citadel.  Walking down the road one day, he finds the body of the woman who cursed him, Bianca Abatangelo.  Even though she's as cold as ice, he suspects she may be alive.  

As Bianca discovers the primitive conditions the cursed are forced to live in, a fire is lit in her cold heart.  Determined to communicate their plight to the citizens of Citadel, she writes a leaflet she is determined to deliver.  But a drastic change is about to turn her world upside-down and vault her into the inner world of Citadel's most holy and powerful citizens, the priesthood of the Ellipse.

It wasn't until she started unpacking the box marked "Computer" that it occurred to her that it had been almost a year since she had last played The Culling. She carefully lifted her virtual reality helmet out of the carton and set it on her parent's kitchen table. "My kitchen table, now," she reminded herself. This was her first apartment, the thing she had been working towards. She had been working full-time for eight months now, taking online classes at night, seeing a therapist and actually participating in therapy. 

If she was being honest, all of it was scary. The better she did, the more there was to lose. She dug around in the box, finally finding the thing she was looking for, the game itself. It was time, she decided. 

Time to go back and see what her alter ego had been up to.