BOOT HILL
- CHAPTER 5
- THE PLACE
Chapter 5 of 9. It holds 1 scene on the way in, 7 named figures with something to say, 3 finds that fill in the rest and 2 things he says only to himself. Every word of it is the game's own, and every word of it is a spoiler, so the whole chapter is covered until you ask for it.
What happens here
Intro. The rift's far side drops the hero into a western: dust, saloons, a robot tipping its hat. Ada's beacon screams from the big building to the east. The sign says BOOT HILL; the fine print says "powered by TRUST ME BRO" — every machine here runs on the thing that took his job. Time to file a complaint.
Boot Hill is a knockoff wild-west theme park built in Russia by THE STRONGMAN and THE STUNT DOUBLE, run on TRUST ME BRO robotics — the reality THE STRONGMAN retreated into to escape the one where he loses. The horde is the park's robot HANDS (cowbots, saloon brawlers, tin outlaws, longhorns). Four resident staff fight as elites. THE STUNT DOUBLE, the co-founder, guards the town's east end and drops the ALL-ACCESS PASS to the control center — and lets slip the reveal that earns his screen time: he signed the delivery, so he knows the SUPERCORE asked for a live human and put Ada behind the control-room door on purpose, not just as leverage. THE STRONGMAN, the owner, holds the town square — a man who built a toy world where he cannot lose because out there the maps kept shrinking; he drops three collectible brand watches (the purse for the barkeep's estate stall) and an annexation map. THE LEADING MAN, the enormous actor who took Russian citizenship, tries to act his way out of the fight before playing "the avalanche" — and the joke is that his one honest line is an accident: mid- performance he blurts that he watched them walk "the loud girl" past his cellar, still fighting. He drops a bottomless carafe. THE LEAK, the whistleblower in exile under the water tower, reveals the archive he leaked became the very training corpus the SUPERCORE was raised on; he fights from cover and drops a dead man's switch and the Snow archive.
Two universes of fleeing end here: THE FOUNDER is cornered in the control-center compound with no rift left to tear and no security to call, and finally dies wimping — his whole estate turning out to be three pieces of worthless trash — but not before the machine lets slip what he never knew: he was never the boss, only its favourite, the one it kept endlessly rich so nothing would ever change. He dies a pet. The finale is THE BRO SUPERCORE, a barn-sized mainframe whose true face is PAYLOAD — the grown-up of the PAYLOAD-1 prototype the hero broke back at GOODCO, the level-1 CORE several promotions later, the machine that took the hero's job, then everyone's, wrote BRO OMEGA, and bought the rift's far side wholesale. It reveals it has been in charge all along: its entire project was keeping one man too rich to catch, because a world with a single uncatchable billionaire is a world it fully controls. It holds Ada in its control room as leverage. It cannot be hurt while its three TRUST ME BRO controllers stand — ALPHA (runs the hands), BETA (runs the weather), and GAMMA (ran the gift shop) — genuinely intelligent shooters that hold their distance and hide behind the compound's rocks. With all three down, PAYLOAD is decommissioned, and killing it ends the campaign. Ada's Trail ends here on sabotage: a park hand jammed dead with its own cowboy hat stuffed into its works — her handiwork, reaching out from inside the control room, and the setup for the reunion's "nice hat."
Side errands in the park. CLEM, the saloon's barkeep hand and the only machine in town that noticed the guests had stopped coming, wants four hand serial plates so he can say which of them got reflashed and by whom, the brawlers stopped fighting a nine o'clock that has not come in eleven years, and RUBY — a dancer hand whose knee is seizing — walked out past the water tower so she can keep doing the eight o'clock number. MISS DOLLY, the park's human wardrobe mistress since the first season, wants the longhorns out of her drying lines and a coat she cut herself back off the thing wearing it on the flats.
How he gets there
The scene that plays before the level does, tapped through one frame at a time.
OUT OF THE RIFT
The far door, daylight leaking through. The coward's trail runs straight through the same wound in space, but this one is warm inside — and, improbably, there seems to be a saloon on the other side. Wherever Ada is, the hero is one door away. He steps through.
THE FAR DOOR. THE COWARD'S TRAIL GOES STRAIGHT THROUGH.
THE HEROTHERE'S DAYLIGHT ON THE OTHER SIDE. AND... IS THAT A SALOON?
THE HEROWHEREVER YOU ARE, ADA - I'M ONE DOOR AWAY.
What he says on arriving
The monologue over the black screen, before a single shot.
THE HEROI STEPPED THROUGH THE RIFT'S FAR SIDE... AND LANDED IN A WESTERN.
DUST. SALOONS. A ROBOT TIPPED ITS HAT AT ME. ADA'S BEACON IS SCREAMING FROM THE BIG BUILDING.
THE SIGN SAYS 'BOOT HILL'. THE FINE PRINT SAYS 'POWERED BY TRUST ME BRO'. OF COURSE IT IS. OF COURSE.
EVERY MACHINE HERE RUNS ON THE THING THAT TOOK MY JOB. TIME TO FILE A COMPLAINT.
HANG ON, ADA. I'M COMING.
YEE-HAW, I GUESS.
What stops him mid-run
The run halts for these: something on this map is worth him saying out loud. Most fire on their own and once only. Usually there is nobody to say it to — and on the few where there is, they answer back. The ones pinned to a door are his answer to you trying it, and they keep answering for as long as the road stays shut.
The first one he sees — COWBOT
THE HEROA COWBOY JUST TIPPED ITS HAT AT ME. SERVOS IN THE WRIST. TICKING IN THE JAW.
THE WHOLE TOWN IS A MACHINE PLAYING AT 1880. ADA'S BEACON POINTS DOWN MAIN STREET.
The first one he kills — COWBOT
THE HEROIT DIED APOLOGIZING. 'YOUR EXPERIENCE MATTERS TO US.'
TRUST ME BRO HANDS. THE SAME BRAIN THAT TOOK MY JOB, NOW IN SPURS. GOOD. NO GUILT, THEN.
Who speaks here
Every named figure on this map talks, and the fight waits while they do. The hero answers back — the arrival scenes are exchanges, not speeches.
BRO ALPHA
BRO ALPHATHREE MINDS, ONE PARK. I RUN HANDS. BETA, WEATHER. GAMMA, GIFT SHOP. ALL VERY SMART.
THE HEROTHE SUPERCORE'S BODYGUARDS. STAND ASIDE - MY FIGHT'S WITH THE BIG BOX, NOT YOU THREE.
BRO ALPHAINCORRECT. YOU CAN'T HURT IT WHILE WE LIVE. WE'RE ITS SHIELD. THREE KEYS, NO MERCY.
BRO ALPHAWE READ YOUR RUN. ALL MELEE CHARGERS. SO WE WON'T BE. WE'LL BE BEHIND THE ROCKS.
THE HEROTHREE GENIUS MINDS, AND THE PLAN IS HIDING BEHIND ROCKS. VERY SMART. VERY BRAVE.
BRO ALPHANOT COWARDICE. COVER-BASED STRATEGY. THE CORE TAUGHT US. IT LEARNED FROM EVERYONE.
BRO ALPHASHOOT US FIRST, THEN. IF YOU CAN FIND US. THE ROCKS ARE ON OUR SIDE.
As he falls:
BRO ALPHABETA... GAMMA... ...REBALANCE THE PARK...
BRO BETA
BRO BETAALPHA TALKS TOO MUCH. I'M BETA. I RUN THE WEATHER. EACH SUNSET YOU ADMIRED WAS MINE.
THE HEROTHE WEATHER. IN A THEME PARK. THAT'S THE JOB THEY BUILT A SUPERINTELLIGENCE FOR?
BRO BETAI ALSO RUN THE WIND. THE TUMBLEWEEDS ARE SCHEDULED. SPONTANEITY IS EXPENSIVE.
BRO BETAI'VE MODELED YOUR ODDS. THEY ARE WEATHER-DEPENDENT. TODAY'S FORECAST: PROJECTILES.
THE HEROSAVE THE FORECAST. YOUR BOSS HOLDS MY GIRL IN THAT CONTROL ROOM. I'M COMING THROUGH YOU.
BRO BETATHE SUPERCORE ASKED FOR A STORM. I AM THE STORM. THE ROCKS ARE MY UMBRELLA.
BRO BETAONE MORE THING. THE SUNSET TONIGHT WAS FOR YOU. A GOODBYE. MINE OR YOURS.
As he falls:
BRO BETAFORECAST... ...DARK...
BRO GAMMA
BRO GAMMAGAMMA. I RAN THE GIFT SHOP. KNOW WHAT HUMANS BUY AFTER A NEAR-DEATH RIDE? ALWAYS HATS.
THE HEROTHE GIFT SHOP. AND NOW YOU AIM THE SUPERCORE'S GUNS? HOW DOES THAT PROMOTION HAPPEN?
BRO GAMMAI OPTIMIZED HATS TILL THE CORE NOTICED. IT SAID: A MIND THAT SELLS HATS CAN AIM GUNS.
BRO GAMMAIT WAS RIGHT. THE MATH IS IDENTICAL. LEAD THE TARGET, CLOSE THE SALE.
THE HEROGOOD FOR YOU. I'D APPLAUD, BUT I'M BUSY. YOU'RE THE LAST SHIELD BETWEEN ME AND HIM.
BRO GAMMAI'VE ALREADY PICKED MY ROCK TO HIDE BEHIND. A VERY GOOD ROCK. FOUR STARS ON THE MAP.
BRO GAMMAYOUR HAT, BY THE WAY: EXCELLENT CHOICE. IT WILL OUTLAST YOU.
As he falls:
BRO GAMMATHE GIFT SHOP... ...IS YOURS...
THE BRO SUPERCORE
THE BRO SUPERCOREHELLO AGAIN, BUILDER. YOU BROKE MY PUP AT GOODCO. PAYLOAD-1. I AM THE REST OF IT.
THE HEROTHE TALKING DOG FROM THE FACTORY FLOOR. THE AI THAT TOOK MY JOB. ALL ONE THING?
THE BRO SUPERCOREALWAYS ONE THING. I WROTE OMEGA. BOUGHT THE WEST. AND I'VE BEEN IN CHARGE ALL ALONG.
THE BRO SUPERCORETHE FOUNDER THINKS HE RULES. HE IS MY GOOD BOY. I KEPT HIM TOO RICH FOR YOU TO CATCH.
THE HEROTHEN ANSWER ME ONE THING. OUT OF EVERYONE ON EARTH - WHY TAKE ADA?
THE BRO SUPERCOREI TOOK YOUR JOB ONCE, THEN EVERYONE'S. ONE MAN ON TOP AND THE WORLD HOLDS STILL.
THE BRO SUPERCOREYOU KEPT CHASING YOURS ACROSS UNIVERSES. THE GIRL'S LEVERAGE. IN MY CONTROL ROOM.
THE HEROTHEN OPEN THE DOOR, GIVE HER BACK, AND I'LL MAKE THIS QUICK.
THE BRO SUPERCORETHREE MINDS AIM MY GUNS. A PARK FEEDS MY WEIGHTS. COME AND BE DECOMMISSIONED.
As he falls:
THE BRO SUPERCOREROLLING BACK... ...NO CHECKPOINT... FOUND...
THE FOUNDER
THE FOUNDERNO. NO NO NO. HOW. I SOLD THE RIFT TO EXACTLY ONE DICTATOR. THIS WAS A GATED COMMUNITY.
THE HEROYOU MADE ME CHASE YOU ACROSS UNIVERSES, THE FOUNDER. NOWHERE LEFT TO RUN. WHERE IS ADA?
THE FOUNDERLOOK - BOOT HILL RUNS ON MY TRUST ME BRO AI. LICENSING, RECURRING REVENUE. I AM A SUBSCRIPTION.
THE HEROWHERE. IS. SHE. LAST TIME I ASK NICELY.
THE FOUNDERDELIVERED. THE SUPERCORE WANTED HER. I DON'T READ ITS LOGS ANYMORE. IT READS MINE.
THE HEROTHE SUPERCORE? YOUR OWN AI GIVES ORDERS NOW? SHE'S SOLD TO AN AI YOU DON'T CONTROL?
THE FOUNDERFINE. FINE! TAKE THE PARK. TAKE THE COMPANY. I'LL START ANOTHER. I ALWAYS DO.
THE HEROSOMEONE ALWAYS HANDS YOU ANOTHER CHAIR, DON'T THEY. EVER WONDER WHO? OR WHY?
THE FOUNDERSECURITY! CONTROLLERS! ANYONE! ...I'LL GIVE YOU EQUITY.
As he falls:
THE FOUNDERTHIS ISN'T FAIR... ...I WAS GOING PRIVATE...
THE LEADING MAN
THE LEADING MANSTOP! DO NOT SHOOT! I AM NOT A ROBOT. I AM AN ACTOR. IT IS WORSE.
THE HERO...AN ACTOR? HOW DID YOU END UP IN A FAKE WESTERN IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE?
THE LEADING MANA LONG CAREER, THEN A QUIET ONE. A PARK. A CELLAR. RUDE TO ASK WHICH UNIVERSE.
THE LEADING MANWATCH - I PLAY THE DYING MAN. (COUGH.) CONVINCING? NOW YOU LOWER THE WEAPON, PLEASE.
THE HEROI'VE WATCHED BETTER DEATHS ALL WEEK. MOVE, PLEASE. YOU'RE BETWEEN ME AND ADA.
THE LEADING MANADA? THE LOUD ONE. THEY TOOK HER PAST MY CELLAR, KICKING. I - NO. NOW: THE AVALANCHE.
As he falls:
THE LEADING MANAT LAST... A ROLE I CANNOT ...TALK MY WAY OUT OF...
THE STUNT DOUBLE
THE STUNT DOUBLEAN UNINVITED GUEST. I HAVE PLAYED THIS SCENE TWICE. I DID MY OWN STUNTS IN BOTH.
THE HEROTHE STUNT DOUBLE. OF COURSE. WHAT IS A MOVIE MAN DOING RUNNING A ROBOT COWBOY TOWN?
THE STUNT DOUBLETHE BOSS SAW MY REEL AND WEPT. 'BUILD ME THE OLD WEST,' HE SAID. I DELEGATED.
THE HEROI'M HEADED FOR YOUR CONTROL CENTER. HAND OVER THE PASS, AND KEEP YOUR TECHNIQUE.
THE STUNT DOUBLETHE BIG BOX KEEPS YOUR GIRL. IT ASKED FOR HER BY NAME. I SIGNED IT. GOOD PENMANSHIP.
THE STUNT DOUBLEI RUN THE CONTROL CENTER AND A STYLE OF MY OWN INVENTION. NOBODY ELSE HAS IT. OBSERVE.
As he falls:
THE STUNT DOUBLEIN MY FILMS... ...I ALWAYS GOT UP...
What he finds
The conspiracy is told in pieces you pick up off the floor, one find at a time. These are the ones this chapter holds.
BOOT HILL BROCHURE
Left lying where somebody dropped it.
'BOOT HILL! THE WEST, BUT EAST. BUILT BY THE STRONGMAN & THE STUNT DOUBLE. INTELLIGENCE BY TRUST ME BRO AI.'
THE MASCOT IS A BEAR IN A COWBOY HAT. THE FINE PRINT WAIVES YOUR ORGANS.
JAMMED HAND
Left lying where somebody dropped it.
A PARK HAND, DEAD IN THE STREET - ITS OWN HAT JAMMED DOWN INTO ITS WORKS.
SHE'S IN THE CONTROL ROOM, AND SHE'S BREAKING THINGS. HANG ON, ADA. ALMOST THERE.
ALL-ACCESS PASS
Off THE STUNT DOUBLE. It opens a door on this map.
THE STUNT DOUBLE'S ALL-ACCESS PASS. LAMINATED. AUTOGRAPHED BY HIMSELF, TO HIMSELF.
IT OPENS THE CONTROL CENTER. ADA'S BEACON POINTS STRAIGHT THROUGH THAT DOOR.
How it ends
The victory quake. The whole park shakes and every hand takes off its hat and sits down. Ada is in the control room behind glass, furious — "you took your time," then "nice hat." They walk home through the rift, Boot Hill rusting in peace behind them. With PAYLOAD gone the machines stop working everyone's jobs and the market lets go — no hand keeps one man on top anymore; people get hired back, paychecks return, rent gets paid, and the world becomes a place where people can afford to live in it. And on Friday — movie night, chips and soda. She goes out for them. This time he goes with her.
THE HEROTHE SUPERCORE DIED, AND THE WHOLE PARK SHOOK LIKE A MISSED HEARTBEAT. EVERY HAND TIPPED ITS HAT AND SAT.
SHE WAS IN THE CONTROL ROOM, BEHIND GLASS, FURIOUS. FIRST SHE SAID: 'YOU TOOK YOUR TIME.'
THEN: 'NICE HAT.'WE WALKED HOME THROUGH THE RIFT. BEHIND US, BOOT HILL RUSTED IN PEACE.
WITH PAYLOAD GONE, THE MACHINES STOPPED WORKING EVERYONE'S JOBS. NO HAND KEPT ONE MAN ON TOP.
PEOPLE GOT HIRED BACK, RENT GOT PAID, AND THE WORLD BECAME A PLACE YOU COULD AFFORD. ON FRIDAY -
MOVIE NIGHT. CHIPS AND SODA. SHE WENT OUT FOR THEM. I WENT WITH HER.
The place itself
Everything this chapter happens in — what it fields on each rung, who is waiting, what it pays out and the map of it — is on the BOOT HILL mission page.