Unfortunately, there's a radio connected to my brain. Let's play Bureaucracy!

It does seem that way...except replace "call the hint line" with "order the hint book." Anyway, Sky Render has suggested asking for a parachute, and I'm sure that I know just how to do that. So...

>ask attendant for parachute
"I'm awfully sorry, sir, but I don't know the word 'parachute'."

Maybe I do have to ask for it by brand name, as Sky Render said. And, the brand name is probably...

>ask attendant for stinglai ka'abi
"Oh! You're one of us," says the attendant, smiling. "If I'd known, I'd never have given you the Zalagasan Special. Awful, wasn't it?"

She hands you a parachute and helps you strap it to your back. "You go first," she smiles, "I just have to make some pointlessly reassuring noises to the animals back there." She leaves.

Better get off this plane pronto!

>open hatch
It is incredibly complicated with a huge handle saying "LIFT THEN PULL," although you can bet it's not as easy as that.

>lift hatch
That wasn't too bad. Bet the next step is a real killer.

>pull hatch
You lost your bet. It is as easy as that.

The hatch falls open. The aircraft immediately fills with a dense white vapour through which you can just make out oxygen masks falling from the overhead lockers.

OK, better get out now!

>e
No.

But I have to get out! Maybe if I try again?

>e
No.

All right, one more...

>e
Too late to say anything now. The slipstream has pulled you out of the aircraft and you think you are falling through the air.

[Your score just went up.]

Falling

You're outside the plane.

Of course, it's absurd to suppose that you can fly, and maybe it's just the effect of not much oxygen on not much gray matter, but your fall seems to have been interrupted. This illusion is quickly dispelled as you notice that one of the straps on your parachute is caught in the plane's emergency hatch.


...tiiiiiiime!

Well, at least I'm outside the plane now. Unfortunately, I seem to be stuck in the hatch. I'll just leave off here and see if you know how to get unstuck.

Puzzles:
A parachute strap stuck in the emergency hatch.

Inventory:
An airline magazine
A coupon booklet
A Popular Paranoia magazine
A Swiss army knife
A flyer
A damaged painting of Mikhail S. Gorbachev
$57.50
An envelope
A memo
An eclipse predicting cartridge
A passport
A Boysenberry� laptop computer
A recipe cartridge (containing a foul-looking stew recipe)
A small case
A hacksaw
A Beezer card
A wallet
A US Excess card (expired)
A digital watch
A parachute

Your blood pressure is 122/81, in 498 moves. Your status is Stable. Your score is 12 out of a possible 21, making you a Victim.

Death toll: 5 (shot between the eyes by an old woman with an elephant gun, killed by a heavily-armed paranoiac, plane crash caused by lethal halitosis, plane crash caused by killer lunch special, thrown out of an airplane over a den of cannibals)

Use the hacksaw?

This literally seems like what a swiss army knife was made for.

That stewardess' manner changed entirely once you mentioned the parachute brand! Perhaps she'll be willing to help you again? Dunno how you're gonna get her attention, though...

Hmmm...since you're stuck on the hatch handle, maybe you can push the handle back down...

Oh, wait! I got it! Since you're caught on the handle by the parachute, just take off the parachute! Problem solved!

Let's give some of these suggestions a try! First, cutting the strap.

>cut strap with hacksaw
You cleverly snip the parachute's straps with the hacksaw, and immediately plummet away from the plane.
Falling

In midair, heading down.

You're plummeting downward at an alarming rate.

Hopefully I'm still attached to the parachute, though...

>pull ripcord
You'd better grow longer arms if you're going to reach the ripcord from here.

The ground is getting very close, very quickly.


Well, might as well...

>wait
Time passes.

You're beginning to feel normal again.

Your fall comes to a rather abrupt end as your body hits the ground with a sickening thud.

Death

You are dead.

And another death for the records. Maybe the Swiss army knife will do better?

>cut strap with knife
An ingenious idea. But you'll never sever those heavy-duty parachute straps with a Swiss army knife.

You are currently freezing to death from the -20 degree temperature, you're suffocating from the rarified 30,000 foot air, and, as if these weren't bad enough, you're trailing about fifteen feet behind the escape hatch of your flight to Zalagasa, which you really didn't want to be on anyway.

Maybe if I can let the stewardess know, she can help me somehow? But how can I reach her? Maybe if I...

>knock on hatch
The flight attendant opens the door. "Oh!" She seems surprised. "We aren't going to crash after all -- it was just a computer malfunction. Thank you for choosing Air Zalagasa, and have a nice day."

She frees the strap and you plummet down.

Falling

In midair, heading down.

You're plummeting downward at an alarming rate.

And I'm falling from 30000 feet again, but at least this time I've got a parachute.

>pull ripcord
The parachute opens. You are floating serenely through a clear blue sky which is unfortunately totally obscured by thick black clouds.

You're beginning to feel normal again.

The nerd falls past you. He starts to try to sell you a walking stick for 58 bucks but is gone before he has time to speak. He has no parachute. This does not seem to worry him at all.

Your downward drift continues.

>z
Time passes.

Crunch! You have landed in a tree. Dozens of Ai-Ais cluster about you briefly, then flee in terror. Yet again, $25,000 has evaded your grasp.

Hanging From A Tree

You are hanging upside down by your parachute from the branches of a tree.

Your philosophical side tells you, "It could be worse; it could be raining," while your rational side tells you that, in fact, it is.

I'm pretty sure that Ai-Ais are meant to be aye-ayes. I was actually meaning to link to something about aye-ayes earlier, but it just kept slipping my mind. By the way, I have a bit of an interesting anecdote about them. One night, I had a dream about a weird Flash game where I kept getting the bad ending, wherein the main character turned into an aye-aye. Oddly enough, I had no idea what an aye-aye looked like at the time, just that what I was turning into looked like one. Sorry for going off on this weird little tangent, but I wanted to mention it.

Anyway, how to get out of this tree? Someone has suggested the correct solution in the last batch of suggestions, but I'll see if y'all know which one it was. 'Til next time!

Puzzles:
Getting out of the tree from which I'm hanging upside down by the straps of my parachute.

Inventory:
Inventory:
An airline magazine
A coupon booklet
A Popular Paranoia magazine
A Swiss army knife
A flyer
A damaged painting of Mikhail S. Gorbachev
$57.50
An envelope
A memo
An eclipse predicting cartridge
A passport
A Boysenberry� laptop computer
A recipe cartridge (containing a foul-looking stew recipe)
A small case
A hacksaw
A Beezer card
A wallet
A US Excess card (expired)
A digital watch
A parachute

Your blood pressure is 120/80, in 503 moves. Your status is Stable. Your score is 12 out of a possible 21, making you a Victim.

Death toll: 6 (shot between the eyes by an old woman with an elephant gun, killed by a heavily-armed paranoiac, plane crash caused by lethal halitosis, plane crash caused by killer lunch special, thrown out of an airplane over a den of cannibals, fell 30000 feet without a parachute)

Hacksaw.

It will also be the solution to all future problems. When in doubt, hacksaw.

Does the plane crash if you don't try to leave it via parachute? (I'm guessing yes.)

Also, I wonder what other words the stewardess's parser recognises. (It seems to be different from the regular parser; at least it doesn't increase blood pressure. It probably should have done, though.)

It's a pity this game didn't accept "aim for the ground and miss" as a command when you were falling. That would be so Adamsian.

After the last few brain-bending conundrums, this one seems like a freebie. Hack away!

Now that you said this I am very upset that that wasn't the correct solution for the puzzle.

Now that you mention it, that would have been an awesome solution. But then you wouldn't have had to go through all that argle-bargle and foofaraw with the seat controls. Anyhoo, this puzzle is indeed a freebie after all those nightmarish ordeals at the airport and on the plane. Just be glad that this game wasn't released after 9/11, because then it would have been even worse, I imagine. To get out of the tree, you have to...

>cut straps with hacksaw
You cleverly snip the parachute's straps with the hacksaw, and immediately plummet towards the ground below.

Splash!

Cooking Pot

You are in a cooking pot beneath the tree from which you were previously hanging. The force of your impact seems to have emptied the pot. There is a tribe of Zalagasans dancing around the pot, chanting "Z-BUG! Z-BUG!"

[Your score just went up.]

No problem.

>get out of pot
You are prevented from leaving by the Zalagasans.

Well, this is quite a situation we've landed in. What could Z-BUG mean, and how to not become Cannibal Chow? Until next time.

Actually, this puzzle is a bit bugged, so it'll be another gimme if no one has figured it out after a couple days.

Puzzles:
Getting out of the cannibals' cooking pot.

Inventory:
An airline magazine
A coupon booklet
A Popular Paranoia magazine
A Swiss army knife
A flyer
A damaged painting of Mikhail S. Gorbachev
$57.50
An envelope
A memo
An eclipse predicting cartridge
A passport
A Boysenberry� laptop computer
A recipe cartridge (containing a foul-looking stew recipe)
A small case
A hacksaw
A Beezer card
A wallet
A US Excess card (expired)
A digital watch

Your blood pressure is 120/80, in 506 moves. Your status is Stable. Your score is 13 out of a possible 21, making you a Victim.

Death toll: 6 (shot between the eyes by an old woman with an elephant gun, killed by a heavily-armed paranoiac, plane crash caused by lethal halitosis, plane crash caused by killer lunch special, thrown out of an airplane over a den of cannibals, fell 30000 feet without a parachute)

Well, we're dealing with a tribe of natives... If only we had some godly display to scare them, or something conveniently similar.

...Like an eclipse, maybe? Fire up the cartridge, see if luck is on our side.

Well, we've still got the in-flight magazine. Can we read up on Zalagasan cannibalism now that it IS of use to us?

Why settle for American stew when you can whip up the Zalagasan special? The very same dish famously served on the nation's luxury airline! Don't know how to make it? Well, I happen to have a recipe right here....

Give them your fancy digital watch.

Alternate Solution: Look Over There, It's A Three-Headed Monkey!

Well, we've got the right solution, but let's try the others before we do that. First of all, let's see if the airline magazine is any less useless now.

>read airline magazine
The in-flight magazine is packed with useful information about duty-free cigarets, interesting llama-wool clothes and pygmy hog breeding. There is a competition prize of $25,000 for the best photograph of the amazingly rare Ai-Ai, and a long article which tells you far more than you wanted to know about the damned creature, illustrated with a fuzzy photograph which could equally well be a dingo's armpit on a dark night, and another article on the legendary Zalagasan princess Ani-Ta'a, a hypermanic virago who, according to the caption below her picture, could enslave men and terrify babies at a single glance.

The last item you read is a particularly boastful and disgusting article on the various types of cannibalism practised in Zalagasa. Hardly any of this material is of the slightest use to you, but you read it anyway because that is the sort of thing people do on aeroplanes.

Well, that didn't do much. I find it amusing that they mention "the sort of thing people do on aeroplanes" even when you're off the plane, though. But maybe they might find our digital watch pretty neat?

>give watch to zalagasans
You can't give anything to the Zalagasans.

Or not. Now, I'm not sure of how I would do the three-headed monkey thing, but they might find some Boysenberry cartridge demos interesting...

If you're wondering, that's part of the bug, of sorts. Actually, it's really more of an oversight than a bug. The Zalagasans are supposed to have computers, but for some reason, they don't. The other part, by the way, is that you never die in the cooking pot, no matter how long you spend there.

>get recipe
[the recipe cartridge]

You take the recipe cartridge out of your Boysenberry computer.

>put eclipse in boysenberry
[the eclipse predicting cartridge]
The eclipse predicting cartridge slips into your Boysenberry computer with a thrilling little click...

BCDOS 1.0
All diagnostics completed
Press any key to boot...

Boysenberry Eclipse Predictor V6.9
Nearest eclipse: Yesterday
Totality at: 12:37PM
Prime viewing location: Zalagasa
Next eclipse: 2/7/98

Your screen goes blank.

For some reason the Zalagasans seemed completely unimpressed with your eclipse prediction. They mention that yesterday's eclipse was quite beautiful and that every member of the tribe belongs to the Zalagasa Boysenberry Users' Group (Z-BUG). It is obvious that the Zalagasans will not be fooled by the old eclipse prediction trick.

Hmm, but maybe they might be interested in another cartridge, one procured in a somewhat shady fashion?

>get eclipse
[the eclipse predicting cartridge]

You take the eclipse predicting cartridge out of your Boysenberry computer.

>put recipe in boysenberry
[the recipe cartridge]

The recipe cartridge slips into your Boysenberry computer with a thrilling little click...

BCDOS 1.0
All diagnostics completed
Press any key to boot...

Midnight Recipe Projekt(sic)
RAGOUT "REINE DE L'AFRIQUE"
Take one medium llama, peeled, 8
pecks garlic, 15 bushels STALE celery,
2 pounds shallots, 10 bushels carrots,
onions, turnips, snails, worms, lard,
helium, nematodes, gristle, and earth
to taste. Boil llama till bored, add
other stuff and stir until congealed.
Decorate with greenish milk curds.
Serves one small aeroplane.

Your screen goes blank.

The entire tribe go into an ecstatic frenzy. They grab the cartridge from your computer and run off to try it out on their Boysenberry. One kindly soul, remorseful at taking your cartridge without compensation, gives you another one. "Maybe you'll like this." He also hands you an address book. "If you see that nerdly fellow, give him this. He dropped it here just now."

[Your score just went up.]


Well, we've got our address book back...or is it?

>read address book
On opening the address book, you find that in common with many loose-leaf address books, most of the pages are loose and have fallen out. There are only two or three left. Most of these are stuck together with jam, chewing gum or an unpleasant combination of both.

Which page do you want to read, the first page, the middle page, or the last page?

Looks like ours...but let's just make sure.

>first
This page is labelled NAME AND ADDRESS OF OWNER. You see

RANDOM Q HACKER
5 RAINBOW TURTLE Vista
Rhinoceros, NJ 81818
247-4594

which has been crossed out (aren't you glad you moved?). Under that you see

Jeff R. Plant
621 Peach
Chicago, IL 45213
612-2114

There's also a notice on this page which says, "If lost, please return this address book to the owner at the above address. $25 reward."

It's ours, all right...but what could those changes mean? Anyway, we've also got a new cartridge, so let's check it out.

put unlabelled in boysenberry
[the unlabelled cartridge]

The unlabelled cartridge slips into your Boysenberry computer with a thrilling little click...

BCDOS 1.0
All diagnostics completed
Press any key to boot...

Command:
Press ? for help, or enter a command.
Command:?
Type the name of a command, followed
by a carriage return. ? or HELP gets
this listing; DIR lists other
commands. QUIT turns computer off.
DIR listing follows.
Command list:

• CLEAR: Clear the screen
• NOOZ
• PRINTB
• PRINTC
• PRINTD
• PRINTE

Well, with a list of commands, we might as well try them out.


Command:NOOZ
The Strange and Terrible History of
Bureaucracy

Once upon a time Douglas Adams and
Steve Meretzky collaborated on a game
called "The Hitchhikers Guide to the
Galaxy." Everyone wanted a sequel, but
Douglas thought it might be fun to do
something different first. He called
that something "Bureaucracy," and
wanted Marc Blank to work on it with
him. Of course, Marc was busy, and
Douglas was busy, and by the time they
could both work on it, they were too
busy to work on it. So, Jerry Wolper
got a free trip to Las Vegas to talk
to Douglas about it before it was
decided to let it rest for a while
instead. Jerry decided to go back to
school, so Marc and Douglas spent some
dime on Nantucket looking at llamas,
drinking Chateau d'Yquem, and arguing
about puzzlers. Nothing much happened
for a while, except that Marc and
Douglas got distracted again. Paul
DiLascia decided to give it a try, but
changed his mind and kept working on
Cornerstone. Marc went to work for
Simon and Schuster, and Paul went to
work for Interleaf. Jeff O'Neill
finished Ballyhoo, and, casting about
for a new project, decided to take it
on, about the time Jerry graduated.
Jeff got a trip to London out of it.
Douglas was enthusiastic, but busy
with a movie. Progress was slow, and
then Douglas was very busy with
something named "Dirk Gently." Jeff
decided it was time to work on
something else, and Brian Moriarty
took it over. He visited England, and
marvelled at Douglas's CD collection,
but progress was slow. Eventually he
decided it was time to work on
something else. Paul made a cameo
appearance, but decided to stay at
Interleaf instead. So Chris Reeve and
Tim Anderson took it over, and mucked
around a lot. Finally, back in Las
Vegas, Michael Bywater jumped (or was
pushed) in and came to Boston for some
serious script-doctoring, which made
what was there into what is here. In
addition, there were significant
contributions from Liz Cyr-Jones,
Suzanne Frank, Gary Brennan, Tomas
Bok, Max Buxton, Jon Palace, Dave
Lebling, Stu Galley, Linde Dynneson,
and others too numerous to mention.
Most of these people are not dead yet,
and apologise for the inconvenience.

Well, that was...interesting. But now to see what those PRINT commands do.

Command:PRINTB
(screen fills with gibberish)

Command:PRINTC
(gibberish changes, but remains gibberish)

Command:PRINTD
(see PRINTC for effect)

Command:PRINTE
(see PRINTD and PRINTE for effect)

Command:QUIT

Your screen goes blank.

They obviously wouldn't have included those "PRINT" files if they didn't have a use outside of filling my screen with gibberish. Probably, you have to print them in some order...but what could that order be? I'll leave that for you to figure out. Until next time!

Puzzles:
An unlabelled cartridge containing four commands that print out various arrays of random gibberish.

Inventory:
An address book
An eclipse predicting cartridge
An airline magazine
A coupon booklet
A Popular Paranoia magazine
A Swiss army knife
A flyer
A damaged painting of Mikhail S. Gorbachev
$57.50
An envelope
A memo
An eclipse predicting cartridge
A passport
A Boysenberry� laptop computer
An unlabelled cartridge
A small case
A hacksaw
A Beezer card
A wallet
A US Excess card (expired)
A digital watch

Your blood pressure is 122/81, in 517 moves. Your status is Stable. Your score is 14 out of a possible 21, making you a Victim.

How about the order we saw those letters in earlier?

Sounds good. Let's try it.

put unlabelled cartridge in boysenberry

The unlabelled cartridge slips into your Boysenberry computer with a thrilling little click...

BCDOS 1.0
All diagnostics completed
Press any key to boot...

Command:PRINTC
(gibberish)
Command:PRINTE
(gibberish)
Command:PRINTD
(gibberish)
Command:PRINTB

Code:

TeHutngdTsnpforltIggttffefrsTitogcwta
onephuoihuurrfoahfoowhoixioehshnoaion
 taoem rebmeo ose   oruvaroce ee sl t
frdn bientbvmtmt iES,eremsmo 4 ;Selte
iaq fenccrei h. dtao e,,pt nd1l o. hc
nnueir tearote di suU,  l idi,ayu reh
dcanreaifc uh Tifittp DWens f sotFe a
 ertsdnootosecagfs;h;Noe,u ifmtuhat m
t tet ynr f  ukie  ; ows m6sea   iu b
hter r .tt rnretrzi irnttb4 rkdsilr e
eori o  hhtour  eefift;.he;1eiihnun r
  sn o  ,ehometonr f h  er 0nngo r  .
  ,g m    embnhfcoo  ;iF et5cgiutey
     ,      ete e,n   fo dh.e tlh o
            r   . e  i r  e    di u
                  ,  f          s

Which still looks like gibberish, but it does mean something this time. I'll see if you can figure it out the trick to reading it later. But before that, we should probably get out of the pot before the Zalagasans come back. They won't, but still.


Command:QUIT

Your screen goes blank.

Now, to check for exits.

>l
Cooking Pot

You are in a cooking pot beneath the tree from which you were previously hanging. The force of your impact seems to have emptied the pot. The tribe have retreated to their computer to try out your pirated recipe program.

A damaged painting of Mikhail S. Gorbachev is here.

Oh, yeah. I never got out of the pot. Better rectify that.

>stand
You're already standing.

Forgot that that doesn't work. But this should...

>exit pot
You get out of the pot while the Zalagasans are busy cataloguing their missionary and explorer recipe for the upcoming National Geographic article. Stumbling along, you fall into a hole, and end up in a grubby antechamber underground.

Grubby Antechamber

You're in a foul, unkempt antechamber which smells strongly of old socks. There's a closed locker door in the west wall, and an exit to the east. It's not at all clear how you managed to end up here; there's no trace of whatever entrance you used.

And with this, we're at the beginning of the endgame. Should I look to the east or the west first?

Puzzles:
A mass of seemingly-unreadable text which actually does include a message. I already know the solution to this, but I just want to see if you can figure it out.

Inventory:
An address book
An eclipse predicting cartridge
An airline magazine
A coupon booklet
A Popular Paranoia magazine
A Swiss army knife
A flyer
$57.50
An envelope
A memo
An eclipse predicting cartridge
A passport
A Boysenberry� laptop computer
An unlabelled cartridge
A small case
A hacksaw
A Beezer card
A wallet
A US Excess card (expired)
A digital watch

I got rid of the painting of Gorby to make room to remove and reinsert the unlabelled cart, if you're wondering.

Your blood pressure is 120/80, in 526 moves. Your status is Stable. Your score is 14 out of a possible 21, making you a Victim.

Let's presto-chang-o-flip-o-round that message! (Read it vertically, starting on the left side.)

"To find the entrance to Headquarters, upon entering the first numbered room, go in any direction. Thenceforth, subtract the number of the previous room from the number of the current room. Take the last digit of the difference. If it is zero, go East; if one, go South; if two, Up; if three, North; if four, Down; if five, West. For example, the first numbered room is 64; the second is 105. The difference 41, making the last digit one; you should go South in this case. Failure will return you to the antechamber."

Wow, I admire your perseverance. I figured out how to read the message, but I could only go as far as "Headquarters" before I got a headache.

It's all about the technique. I didn't read it without a bit of electronic help of sorts, you see. I had two instances of a text editor open: one with the message and one where I typed what I observed. I ran the cursor straight down as a reading aid on the first, then Alt-Tabbed and typed each line into the second. Then I made a return to the top and over one letter and continued. Took me very little time and wasn't hard at all.

Let's explore this place. First, trying to open the door to the west.

>open door
The locker door seems to be locked.

Well, I guess that's a given. But maybe there's something to the east?

>e
Switchgear Room 10

You are in a switchgear room, with exits in all directions. Inscribed on the wall is the number 10.

Numbered rooms...sounds familiar. Wait a minute...

So, to be arbitrary, let's make like a Kai Lord and go east.

>e
Switchgear Room 35

You are in a switchgear room, with exits in all directions. Inscribed on the wall is the number 35.

35-10=25, the last digit of which is 5, so we should go...

>w
Switchgear Room 59

You are in a switchgear room, with exits in all directions. Inscribed on the wall is the number 59.

This time, the difference is 24, meaning we should go...

>d
Switchgear Room 92

You are in a switchgear room, with exits in all directions. Inscribed on the wall is the number 92.

The difference between 92 and 59 is 33, so the next path is...

>n
Switchgear Room 117

You are in a switchgear room, with exits in all directions. Inscribed on the wall is the number 117.

Again, the difference is 25, so...

>w
Switchgear Room 141

You are in a switchgear room, with exits in all directions. Inscribed on the wall is the number 141.

This sure is one long maze. Anyway, this time the difference is 24, so...

>d
As you approach what seems to be a blank wall, it slides open, then closes again after you pass through. It looks like a blank wall from the other side, too.

Airlock

This is a bare, inhospitable room. Nothing actually happens here at all; it is merely a sort of nasty one-way filter. It's a bit like being inside the "mind" of a tax inspector, really.

In fact, it is an airlock. The door by which you entered has disappeared, flush with the wall. A door leads north. Pretty atmospheric, eh?

To the west, you see a closed locker door.

There's a closed airlock door in the north wall, with a card reader slot in it.

Well, we've made it, and there's another locker door. Maybe this one won't be locked?

>open locker door
The locker door seems to be locked.


Of course. And I imagine that there's no way I'm getting through the airlock door without some sort of card other than a credit card, since there's a card reader.

Actually, I think that by completing the maze early, I may have screwed myself over, based on the wall closing behind me and the fact that I don't have any keys or anything.

Actually, I haven't really gotten a good look at either locker. So...

>examine locker door
The door is closed. There are three handles on the door, arranged in a row. The left handle is pointing up. The middle handle is pointing down. The right handle is pointing up. There's also a sign attached to the door.

And where there's a sign, it must be read.

>read sign
The sign contains the rather arcane text:
010
100
001
111
and nothing else. You wonder why it doesn't just say Locker 2417.

There is, indeed, a reason that it's labelled that way...but I'll leave that for you to find out. Until next time!

Puzzles:
A locker with a door operated by some sort of handle mechanism.

Inventory:
Inventory:
An address book
An eclipse predicting cartridge
An airline magazine
A coupon booklet
A Popular Paranoia magazine
A Swiss army knife
A flyer
$57.50
An envelope
A memo
An eclipse predicting cartridge
A passport
A Boysenberry� laptop computer
An unlabelled cartridge
A small case
A hacksaw
A Beezer card
A wallet
A US Excess card (expired)
A digital watch

Your blood pressure is 120/80, in 539 moves. Your status is Stable. Your score is 14 out of a possible 21, making you a Victim.

Perhaps it's like the cartridge text: it's not 2417 read across, it's 593 read down?

Or it's buttons to press in a grid of some sort.

EDIT: Or I could've missed the part where there are three levers on the door. Since it's already in a position of up/down/up, then 0 means up and 1 means down?

That makes sense! Since the game has had a sudden burst of making sense, perhaps it will follow through this time too. Let's see, that would be... Left and middle levers, then left and right levers, then left and middle levers again.

One does have to wonder what sort of idiot puts the combination to their locker on the front of it. Sort of like setting your luggage combination to 1-2-3-4-5...

They could also be ais which are a variety of three-toed sloth. Or they could be meant to be some combination of ais and aye-ayes.

Sky Render is on a roll here with puzzle solutions!

>pull left and middle handles
[the left handle]

These handles seem more as if they're meant to be turned.

Glad to see that they're evading "guess the verb" here.

>turn left and middle handles
[the left handle]

The left handle is now pointing down.
The middle handle is now pointing up.
You hear a click inside the door.

That click is a good sign...let's continue!

>turn left and right handles
[the left handle]

The left handle is now pointing up.
The right handle is now pointing down.
You hear a click inside the door.

You're beginning to feel normal again.

>turn left and middle levers
[You must have special permission to use the word "levers" in this story.]

[Your blood pressure just went up.]

Whoopsy-doodle.

>turn left and middle handles
[the left handle]

The left handle is now pointing down.
The middle handle is now pointing down.
You hear a sharp click, as if something inside the door had moved.

And now, we should be able to open...

>open locker door
The locker door swings open.
[Your score just went up.]

What lies within?

>look in locker
[the locker door]

Little can be seen from where you are.

You're beginning to feel normal again.

>enter locker
[the locker door]

Locker

You're in a large locker. The exit is an open locker door to the east.

There's a magnetic key-card on the floor.

I bet I know what to do with this!

>look in locker
[the locker door]

Little can be seen from where you are.

You're beginning to feel normal again.

>enter locker
[the locker door]

Locker

You're in a large locker. The exit is an open locker door to the east.

There's a magnetic key-card on the floor.

>put key-card in slot
Which slot do you mean, the airlock door or your Boysenberry computer?

>door
The card slides smoothly in the reader slot, and you hear what could be a bolt snapping back.

And I should be able to open it now...it's starting to get exciting...

>open airlock door
In your current relaxed state, you can't get the airlock door to move at all.

[Your blood pressure just went up.]

Hmm...how to get the door open? Although this one shouldn't be too hard, I'll let you figure it out.

Puzzles:
A door that I can't open, despite having unlocked it.

Inventory:
An address book
An eclipse predicting cartridge
An airline magazine
A coupon booklet
A Popular Paranoia magazine
A Swiss army knife
A flyer
$57.50
An envelope
A memo
An eclipse predicting cartridge
A passport
A Boysenberry� laptop computer
An unlabelled cartridge
A small case
A hacksaw
A Beezer card
A wallet
A US Excess card (expired)
A digital watch

Your blood pressure is 123/81, in 555 moves. Your status is Stable. Your score is 15 out of a possible 21, making you a Victim.

Well, if we're relaxed now, we need to work ourselves into a lather, regardless of blood-pressure related health detriments. Ergo, we must WAX BABOON twelve or so times in a row. Or something else, I'm not picky.

Indeed, we need a mess of stupid commands to get one's stress up! Hooray for games encouraging bad decisions to further the plot! I knew they didn't add that "get stressed from bad commands" feature for nothing. So let's go crazy! DANCE THE MAMUSHKA, WATER THE CAT, PUT GEM IN MOUTH, the works!

COUNT PANTS
GET FUNKY