Part 16: Of Dogs and Batteries

First half of this update coming right up!

Here we go again! Time for Rex to continue his merry stroll through Machopolis, the galaxy's burliest city!




Still on the upper level of Machopolis, we find this window to the sea, a reminder that the city is built under sea level. This definitely the art sector, look at the decor around here.



Suddenly, this ugly beast appears.

As you look out into the ocean you pause and think. The engineering that went into this city amazes you. Building a metropolis in a volcano comb BELOW sea-level is quite an accomplishment. Something in the water seems to have taken an interest in you.

You know, why DID the men build their city below sea level? I mean, it's open from the top. There's nothing stopping an attack. Hell, all the women needed to do was detonate a large explosive under the nearby sea and it would be swamped.



This is either a piece of fine art, or some kind of sporting symbol.

The sculpture resembles a cube with a lightning bolt glued to it. You do not understand the significance of this shape.



Rex decides to run on to the next area. For some reason a dog is here.



Where there's a dog, there's always a fire hydrant!

This must be that noisy dog's lavatory.



The sign contains an arrow pointing straight down. Your inability to understand its meaning frustrates you.

Hahahaha, I love this.



Now you have it figured out! This place must have serviced the kind of vehicles that use rubber tires, and ride directly on the road. Why else would there be skid marks and an air hose? This guy must have been into antiques.

Dog (0:12) - Rex decides to approach the noisy dog. Of course, any and all animals spell instant death in adventure games. The sound of the dog barking is embarassingly bad... so much, in fact, that they mention it in the game's quotes once you finish the game.

This area is a dead end for now, so Rex decides to move on.



Here we arrive at Buckluster Video. Of course, the most immediately interesting thing to Rex is the portable toilet.

An interesting aroma emanates from the portable toilet. It's a safe bet that no one has cleaned or emptied it in a century or so.



100 year old newspapers... should be interesting.

The newsstand must have carried almost a hundred different magazines. You can see a few of the headlines: "Women believed to be working on biological weapons - Defense Council concerned", and "New residential section to be powered up today".

We sure "powered up" Bruce's residential section, didn't we? Interesting abou the biological weapons. Perhaps this is how the women defeated the men?



Yet another statue of a naked woman.

The statue catches your interest. The statue continues to catch your interest. You stare at the statue for a few minutes. You decide to do something else before you need a cold shower.



Here comes the "Ouch!"

Rex: Hmmmm. Let's check this place out.
Rex: Curses! It's locked!

Curses!



The billboard advertises a new hormone supplement. The men who lived here must have wanted to be extremely male.

Except for Bruce.



Occasionally a head pokes out here, hinting at an alleyway. Sure enough, there is one here.



Some dude is still alive? Wow.



Rex, of course, doesn't even blink and decides to check out the fridge instead.

The refridgerator looks older that the hermit. Rust has replaced the enamel finish in most places. The hinges also appear to be badly rusted.

But at least it's not radioactive. You're being out-classed by a centurion hermit, Rex.



Not likely. Those hinges might as well be welded solid.



For the most part, the gratfiti on the wall is no different from that which can be found in any city on any world. However, a few random scribblings like "73766,347" and "PTJT50A" strike you as unusual. There are several good limericks and a candid opinion about the questionable parentage of someone named Bruce. A wave of poetic inspiration comes over you, but after searching your pockets you realise you forgot to bring your spray paint can.

As far as I know, those random scribblings are complete red herrings. I certainly don't know what they refer to, if anything.



Rex continues to ignore the hermit for now. He wants to talk to the hermit on HIS terms.

All sorts of trash has been dumped here. This looks like your bedroom on the Pig.



The man in the alley seems extremely nervous in your presence. He looks as though he hasn't taken a bath in a year or two. You don't know what the native life span is, but he looks ancient. He is wearing some kind of personal stereo.

Personal stereo? That's a strange thing to bring attention to.



Rex has scouted enough. Time to get down to business.



Hermit: Don't hurt me.
Rex: Who are you?
Hermit: I'm Herman Spiltmelk. Who are you?

Rex is the master of introductions.

Rex: I'm Rex Nebular, God's gift to the galaxy!
Hermit: You must be a real man. No woman could ever be so arrogant.

Hahahahahaha

Rex: What are you doing here?
Hermit: I'm hiding from them evil women.
Rex: Why aren't there any women around here?

Rex is seriously slow on the uptake. Either that or he just enjoys forcing hermits to talk about wars that decimated their kind.

Hermit: There's a lot of anti-female security systems from the War still working around here. It's not safe for them in this city.
Rex: Can't the women just use that Gender Bender thing?

This is actually a pretty good point.

Hermit: They almost never use that thing to come in here. They hate being men so much that they'd sooner leave this entire city alone than be men--even for a few hours.
Rex: War? What war are you talking about?
Hermit: I'm speaking of the Great Gender War. Almost a hundred years ago the sexes of this planet went to war. It was horrible. I was barely a teenager when it ended.

And you've somehow lived here on your own for almost 100 years? Nice, man.

Rex: I guess the women won. How did they do it?
Hermit: While the men perfected the physical sciences, the women worked on biological stuff. They developed a virus that would kill off all the men on the planet. Worked too. Of course it also fixed them women so they can't conceive male children. Now they really need that Gender Bender to keep the race goin'.

So that's what happened. Interesting that they can only have female kids. The girls here really fucked this planet right on up.

Rex: What does this city have to do with all this?
Hermit: This is Machopolis. The city of men. It was built a few years into the war as a safe place for male non-combatants to live. Of course it didn't help much in the end.
Rex: Do you know anything about a precious vase?

Dude is talking about the city of men and you want to talk about a fucking vase Rex, what's the matter with you man?

Hermit: Vase? Well if it were a rare one it was probably part of Bill Bigfish's art collection. He was governor here when we lost the war. Word was he had a pretty decent art collection.
Rex: So what do you do here?
Hermit: Well I used to walk around and listen to music all day, but my squalkman hasn't worked in a month or two. I used up every battery I could find in this whole city. I miss my music . . . a lot.

"Squalkman". Uh-huh.

Rex: How do you get around? Everything's locked?
Hermit: It used to be that everyone in this city had an ID card to let them go places. I lost my old one, so I had to make one up. It isn't very good, but it works.
Rex: Do you think I could borrow that ID card?
Hermit: I'll tell you what. I'll give you the ID to keep if you can find me some batteries for this here squalkman.

We'll have to look for some batteries then, we need that ID card.

Rex: Where is the governer's collection?
Hermit: The governor lived in the tallest building in the city. His penthouse was the only thing that stuck above the city rim. I don't think you can get there anymore--that part of the city has all fallen apart. Too bad you can't fly.
Rex: I'll try to find you some batteries.
Hermit: Great. I don't get around as easy as I used to. Walking 'round this city is a real chore these days.
Rex: See you later.
Hermit: O.K. Later.



Let's see if this has any batteries?



"Durafail". Sigh. They're flat, but let's trade them for an ID card anyway. Because Rex is a heartless asshole.



Or, let's juggle them. Apparently.

You study the batteries for a moment and then remember that you never learned how to juggle more than one of anything.



Time to talk business.



In the easiest setting I believe he just takes them here. Instead, we need to find two more.



This is the last destination, a service area here. That's the top of that huge statue, so I guess we're directly above the pleasure dome.



This is probably what's holding up the boat down there then!

The ropes hanging down from the armatures are suspending a boat above a restaurant on the lower level. They are connected to a pair of small winches. You assume the control box on one of the armatures must control the winches. The winches look like they have rusted away.



The enormous statue stands in front of "Polly's Pleasure Dome" and is definitely in correct proportions. Despite a missing right arm she still manages to keep your interest for several minutes. You suddenly wish you were fifty feet tall.

Rex would be hilarious to watch. He'd be just walking along when suddenly he'd see a picture of a girl and just stand and stare slack-jawed for like 5 minutes and then just keep walking again.



"Polly's Pleasure Dome." It sounds like your kind of place. The statue in front of it catches your attention.

Make that 10 minutes.



A padlock secures the control box door closed. The control box is showing signs of advanced decay, but the padlock, unfortunately, is not.

So wait a minute, we got a padlock key out of the cash register in the seafood restaurant directly below this box. Perhaps...





Yes, Rex. Very clever, Rex.

Once you removed the lock, the cover of the control box fell off. Being composed mostly of rust, the release lever crumbled in front of you. This caused the winches to release their grip on the ropes, sending the boat crashing down onto the street below.

This is the last area still accessible to the car, so let's just take a second to summarise Machopolis. We have a security/weapons section (that we don't yet have access to), a video game shop, an enormous laser cannon, a fish place, a strip club, an organ market, a video shop, an antiques car place, and a service deck that just happens to overlook a 50-foot statue of a scantily-clad woman. Sounds about right. Bruce is clearly an anomoly.



Rex heads downstairs to check out his newly lowered boat.



Here's something I forgot to do last update. Let's grab this fishing rod off the wall.



Apparently Rex destroyed his pants in grade school.



Time to get the fishing line out of this rod.



Can't have too much line!



Something else I missed. There are some bones here on the ground.





After gnawing on the bone for a few minutes you are overwhelmed by the urge to use your foot to stratch for fleas.

I like to think of Rex talking to Stone, relating his story of how he found the vase, going into detail about how he picked up a bone, and then gnawed on it.



And then picked up another bone. And probably gnawed on that too.


Tune in tomorrow to see, how can we get past the dog? Where are some more batteries? Where is the tallest building? All this and more can be found exclusively in this LP tomorrow!!