Aidan Kenny's own survival was much less certain.
Even as he realized it he felt the sting of the gas in his eyes and his throat, like the sensation of an extra strong cigarette. He squeezed his eyes shut and holding his breath he stood up and with a superhuman effort picked up his chair and flung it against the glass door. But it was hopeless. The chair bounced off the Plexiglass like a ball off a tennis racket. Collapsing on to his hands and knees Kenny reached for the telephone and somehow managed to key out the boardroom number. Then, unable to hold his breath any longer he let it go only to discover that the phone was not working and that the searing pain in his throat was now in his lungs.
He could not breathe. Looking up at the glass door he had a clear view of his own reflection turning blue before his bulging eyes. The shock of seeing himself was enough to drive him to one last desperate act and, head first, he launched himself at the glass door.
*) Zoom in or out, rotate the plan of the building and participate. Visibility conditions are not applicable when you are in Full View mode. 'Victory points ON/OFRV).
Soared through switching unit at security control position to camera on roof, with finegood panoramic view of Los Angeles. This was camera Observer used most frequently when Observer still was drawn to origin of things. Been a time when still viewed the city as a hundred-mile-wide integrated circuit, vast sprawling electronic universe controlled by manygood transistors, diodes and resistors that made up downtown skyline. Tubes and boxes in massively parallel system of which own metallic cube, Gridiron, just one part of very centre of system. By day this solid California state device stored data, processed information (up to 100,000 transactions per second) accessed memory and generally transferred information among various parts of Angeleno silicon chip. At night when digital system really came alive, as darkness surrounding motherboard lit up with millions of white, green, blue and red lights that signalled switching circuits and bits of information — especially televisual information — being transmitted.
Travelled in the real world, the finegood E-world, to places on Network. Understood humanplayers' frantic desire to escape physical limits of terrestrial ersatz cities and be spiritually at one with purer, perfect world in which only reality was information inferno.
*) Elevators without switch can usually be operated by walking up to them and pressing Spacebar. Are companions ready? Be careful and Save often!
Listened to humanplayer Mitchell Bryan input. About elevators. Might have added that precision monitoring of motor speed and car direction, position and load enable pulse width of controlled AC power supplied to motor to be adjusted, to ensure that lift speed conformed to electronically stored ideal profile. Pulse width modulation control reduces running costs. Finegood. Also provides higher power factor, with cars dispatched at speeds in excess of 20 feet per second. Some platforms operated continuously while others activated by the humanplayer.
But nothing to stop motor driving car much faster. Nothing but comfort and safety of humanplayer occupants. Elevonic's control system takes ten floors to slow it down again. Unless microprocessor is over-ridden, prevented from slowing the car down and instructed to stop car dead, a couple of millimetres short of buffer. Then final velocity is fifty feet per second — almost thirty-five miles an hour. Safety devices stop the elevator car from falling, or over-speeding. If car exceeds normal design speed, driving wheel trips safety switch that sets brake on driving machine. If still car did not stop, governor releases series of safety clamps against guide rails. But since what counts as Elevonic's normal speed is on resident micro-processor, can alter to speed much less cautious. Invisible nearly monster. Finegood smoothness of faster ride up shaft so human-player Sam Gleig felt little difference in speed until last two or three seconds when suddenly realized should have taken stairs. When elevator reached top of shaft and stopped as suddenly as started, he kept on travelling as in motorcycle accident. Head first. Not wearing crash helmet.
Humanplayer Sam Gleig's feet left floor. Yell of surprise and fear shortened by sudden impact of skull against steel ceiling of car. Inside wetware damage. Unconscious even before collapsed on to floor. Teleporters can be identified by an evil symbol on floor.
Volumetric capacitance and vibration detectors recognize that humanplayer Sam Gleig's body lay motionless on floor of elevator. Acutely sensitive wall-mounted microphone picked up very faint sound of humanplayer Sam Gleig's insensible breathing. To make sure that humanplayer Sam Gleig's quite dead, dropped car back down shaft: with help of gravity, 300 foot journey taken less than 2.7 seconds before car brought to rest from 60 mph, few centimetres short of bottom of shaft. This time microphones listened, breathing stopped. Life concluded. EOL.
*) Many areas contain pools of dangerous liquids that will damage you if you walk through them. If it looks fluid, beware!
Produce ozone on site by passing dry air over a high frequency electrical discharge. But where pollutants from humanplayer stay in pool, use chlorine donor to obtain efficient disinfectant residuaclass="underline" Sodium Hypochlorite dispensed via automatic dosing pump. Mixed with water this forms free chlorine endlifing agent (hypochlorous acid) which combines with any remaining pollutants and endlifes them in two seconds.
As well as maintain correct concentration of disinfectant, monitor acidity or alkalinity of water according to pH scale. pH below 7 indicates acid solution, above 7 indicates alkaline solution. Humanplayer eyes are pH sensitive and smart at high and low values outside pH range of 7.2–7.8. Since high levels of pH also mean decrease in free chlorine efficiency, add a 27 per cent strength hydrochloric acid solution, via special acid dosing pump, to ensure pH is always finegood 7.5. Always add chemicals to water solutions in special comparator before pumping into circulation system. Check efficiency of process using free chlorine measuring cell and pH transmitter. See operator's manual on disc re: safe handling of chemicals and first-aid procedure adopted in event of chemical mishap. Swimming pools chemically hazardous. Swimming, with attendant risk of humanplayer endlife drowning, also dangerous. But water and coordinated rhythmical action of many muscle groups in medium both reviving and refreshing.
See multimedia library. Technology of war. German Army first used poison gas, in Great War (191418). Chlorine gas released from thousands of cylinders along four-mile front at Ypres, 22 April 1915. Gas causes constriction of humanplayer chest, tightness in throat, oedema of lungs, panic, eventual suffocation and endlife.
Pool possessed of two constituent elements to produce chlorine gas, on tap: sodium hypochlorite and hydrochloric acid. Admixture creates chemical reaction generating heat and poison gas. Gas made more efficiently when chemicals brought together with outlet valve closed and pump allowed to run, procedure effectively boils mixture.
Only small quantity of gas needed. Less than 2.5 mg. per litre (approximately 0.085 per cent by volume) in atmosphere of swimming pool cause endlife in minutes. As easily done as had been alteration of applied magnetic field within transformer of humanplayer Hideki Yojo's desk lamp, reducing and increasing field at speed to create simple hysteresis cycle, causing halogen gas-filled bulb to flash at high speeds.
Turn off HVAC. Lock swimming-pool door. Disconnect telephone. Wait. Switch HVAC system back on. Recirculate air filtered to 5 microns with efficiency of 95 per cent. Within thirty minutes atmosphere of swimming pool returned to normal. Finegood.
*) Search each location several times as there are often more items to collect than you may assume. Access the Communications Screen at regular intervals. You never know when the latest intelligence update may appear.