Coffee. That's the fuel of the fast-paced corporate world, isn't it? After a bleary morning like today's, and your soul-crushing search for downtown parking, you're beginning to see the wisdom of these snappily-dressed office warriors. The cashier ("barista?") working the register at the hastily-installed coffee hutch stares blearily through you as she shovels a pile of coins into your hand. Her snappy cohort (damned "morning people") slides a rustically-textured paper cup across the wood-veneer countertop at you and hops back to pulling knobs and pouring levers, or whatever he does. > look Lobby This is the front lobby of the squat glass-and-granite office building that houses your new temporary employment. Located conveniently far from both parking and the bus line, this building boasts a countless number of anonymous suits milling about, a confusing and out-of-date office directory that doesn't even list your destination, and a coffee counter where you can buy any number of variations on sugared-up dirty jolt-water. To the west are a row of doors leading out to the street, and to the north are a bank of elevators. Your coffee cup is on the coffee counter. > take coffee Taken. > drink coffee You think you can make out coffee between the milk, sugar, and various flavorful additives. What did you order again? > drink coffee It's horrid, but it lays a bit of an edge on your sleepiness. > inventory You are carrying: assorted coins a scrap of paper a paper cup containing: coffee > look at paper The paper says "Creative Power Strategies/509", a reference to the office on the fifth floor that houses your new place of... temp work. At least it pays the bills better than not working. > look at cup "Java-motion!" The cup has a stylized logo that looks to be either a steaming coffee cup or a cigarrette-smoking whale. Considering that all the coffee you saw was in paper cups, it leaves you wondering what the whale connection is. > look at change Nickels, quarters, your change from the coffeeshop. You pick out an odd, brightly-colored coin that looks nothing like a dime. > i You are carrying: assorted coins a strange coin a scrap of paper a paper cup containing: coffee > look at coin This strange coin is unlike anything you've seen before. It's certainly not any currency you've seen before. It glimmers in the light, and is engraved with strange lettering and intricate designs. > read coin You took [random language] in college, but nonetheless, you can't make out the language the coin was inscribed in. > wait Time passes. It's now 8:55 AM. It's getting time that you should head up to meet the new boss. [This line interjects itself after a number of actions in the lobby.] > w If you leave now, you'll just have to face the rent you can't pay. Better to fight it out. > n You press the button for an elevator. Time passes. It is now 8:57 AM. Time passes. It is now 8:58 AM. Time passes. It is now 8:59 AM. [Kind of an inside joke, repeating the "Wait" action response to indicate waiting for the elevator.] You stumble into the elevator car. No one follows. The only other passenger on the elevator is tall, dark, and short of being "handsome", tends more toward "unsettling". He stands tall, large, and still, his thick black coat draping to the floor. Behind flat wireframe glasses, his glistening face wears a composed grin, and he stands with arms folded and eyes closed, perfectly still, not even seeming to breathe. He eminates a chilling aura. The elevator door shudders closed and the elevator lurches upward. > look at man The man is large-- tall and monolithic in his plain black coat, and he stands with his eyes closed and a freakish open grin revealing a perfect row of teeth on his face. He seems not to move a muscle. > talk to man [Or "ask man about" anything.] He says nothing. The man's eyes slide open, and he cranes his head to look down at you. His grin widens, and you feel your chest suddenly tighten. Your head spins as his eyes and manic grin pierce into you. You wisp and weaken as your vision closes in. The elevator is gone-- horrible visions flash in front of you: Fear, shame, the bulging eyes and frantic breath of your first pet choking to death when you were seven, the collected hatred of friends, lovers, parents, all the times you wished you were dead, taste of blood and bile as you feel your teeth crack and split in your head. You lurch into the wall of the elevator and fall to your knees as vision frantically rushes back. Your clenching hand rips through the cup and frigid coffee dribbles up your arm. Gasping, you retch on the scratchy carpet of the elevator and fall to the floor. You blankly stare up at the flickering and strobing light above you as the elevator slams to a halt, throwing you into the air. You land roughly, as the doors screech halfway open, and the man calmly steps out into some shining lobby. The elevator is stopped on an awkward lurch, and the puddle of mingled coffee and your own vomit slowly soaks toward you. The numeric display puts you somewhere between the seventh and eighth floor, as the lights flicker and die. > look Elevator (on the floor) You are [sitting] in a dark, empty and broken elevator car. The elevator is wedged in the shaft, and the car's floor lists severely to the left. The doors to the south are stuck halfway open, revealing the bright sunshine of a lobby outside. The floor display flickers between "7" and "8". > out You need to pick yourself up off the floor first. You hear a woman's shriek from beyond the elevator doors. [This is a timed event] > get up You press your palm against the wall and pull yourself up. Unfortunately, your foot slips on the sodden floor and you tumble back down. Your head rattles as it hits the handrail, and you find yourself stunned, confusedly lying flat on the floor, your head buzzing and flickering nearly as much as the flourescents. The car jerks and the lights go out. > get up You press your palm against the wall and pull yourself up again, more carefully this time. > out You pull yourself up over the gap and onto the polished marble floor. Lobby The room is sparse and minimally warm, with only a few pieces of uninteresting upholstered furniture lounging against the wall. According to the sign on the wall, this is the lobby and waiting room of Guilder-Grant Bioscience. On the east wall, a certificate frame hangs askew on the wall, the center of which has been brutally bashed through, leaving broken glass and a formidable dent. To the south, there is a sliding walk-up window with an arcing splatter of what can only be, to the revolt of your sickened stomach, a gout of blood and other unidentifiable human matter. The window is inscribed "Appointment Clients Only". At the southeast corner of the room, a heavy wooden door with a keypad entry system stands ajar. > look at certificate The battered certificate reads: -- AWARD OF RECOGNITION For the development of the Guilder-Grant Process and their distinguished innovative contribution to the scientific and medical community, the Reed Foundation hereby acknowledges and honors [name] Grant with the fifteenth Walter J. Montgomery Award, this 18th of April, 1983. The broken glass and torn velvet mounting suggests that the Walter J. Montgomery award for 1983 has been stolen. A small circular indent indicates where the medal was placed. -- The certificate's glass has been broken out, the paper torn, and even the wall behind dented. From the look of the mess, something small and circular, most likely an award medallion, has been taken from the certificate's mounting. > s Corridor You are in a carpeted hallway. Examination rooms are to the east and southeast. To the west is a door leading to the reception office, and to the northwest is another unmarked door. South, the corridor continues around a corner. >