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Tally lives in your hangar. She eats whatever you bring her and digests itinto materials. She is useful. She is yours. And she is always hungry. You arrive with Tally at your heels — hungry, and therefore small. You findthings, you carry them, you feed them to her. She swallows, pauses, andswells a stage bigger right in front of you :DEvery stage makes her louder, wider and worse tempered. The doorway she walkedthrough five minutes ago now has to be squeezed through — slowly, loudly, andshe comes out of it angry.

Nobody set her appetite. It grew because you workedwell. Aim at her and hold. She throws up part of the haul and drops a stage. It costsyour battery, and it costs less when two of you push at once. Whatever lands onthe floor stops being yours — something in this house collects it. Noise builds room by room and crosses thresholds. Four different things livehere, and each one answers a different threshold.

None of them care that youwere nearly finished. You talk over proximity voice — walls muffle it, distance eats it, and Tallyfollows whoever is speaking. A microphone is required to play. Back at the hangar she digests, you sell what she made, you buy gear. And she is hungry again.…