text: > Go downwards
  You are picking your way through a narrow gap between high banks of vibrating machinery. Twisting aisles branch off in numerous directions, some of them so narrow you'd have to turn sideways to make your way through.
  
  Bolted to the side of one of the machines is a steel ladder, leading up.
  
  > Go east
  Your path is blocked by a towering bank of chugging machinery.
  
  > drop the notice
  (first taking the typewritten notice)
  (slipping the calipers into the pocket of your trenchcoat to get a hand free)
  Taken.
  Dropped.
  
  > go to the north
  You are picking your way through a narrow gap between high banks of vibrating machinery. Twisting aisles branch off in numerous directions, some of them so narrow you'd have to turn sideways to make your way through.
  
  You notice a light bulb set high up on one of the machines, blinking bright, angry red.
  
  > Inventory
  You are wearing your trenchcoat, your clothes and your wedding ring; in addition, you have in your hands a lantern (providing light), a broom and a hooded robe.
  
  The pockets of your trenchcoat contain a pair of calipers, a book of matches with five matches left, a hastily written letter, an old tin (which is closed), a broken padlock, a meat hook, a tattered drawing, a newspaper, a strange black disk, a strange metal flute, a silver locket, a gold locket, a keyring, on which are five keys (a small copper key, an old-fashioned brass key, an old-fashioned iron key, a key to the house and a key to the cellar), an animal's skull, Michael's faculty card, a bundle of soggy pages, a puzzle box (which is open but empty), a flask (which is closed), a letter opener, a slip of paper, a family album, a torn journal, your umbrella and three keys (a long steel key, a tarnished bronze key and a small steel key).
  
  > drop the padlock
  (first taking the broken padlock)
  Dropped.
  
  Without warning, a shrieking steam-release valve lets loose a scalding gout of vapor right in front of you, causing you to stagger backward, strike a low railing with the back of your knees, and topple over into a stainless-steel mixing vat twenty feet deep.
  
  Before you can recover from the fall, two dozen jet nozzles set around the inner circumference of the vat's rim squirt several hundred gallons of high-density mold-injection polymer onto you, at a temperature high enough to set cloth on fire -- although this is not a major concern for you, since you are almost instantaneously submerged and completely cut off from the air. The vat is filled to the rim in less than a second and a half -- slightly less time than it takes for the heat and lack of oxygen to kill you, and you are still to some degree conscious when the hydraulic mold-press slams down onto the seething liquid, generating a pressure that rapidly turns your body into something resembling a wet, wadded-up beach towel.
  
  > go south
  Waves of heat and noise assault you from every corner. Towering above you on all sides are the enormous vats, presses and sundry machinery, the ever-churning inner workings of the paper mill. An opening in the base of the south wall leads back to the maintenance crawlway, and narrow aisles lead in several other directions through the chugging machinery. A grilled catwalk high over your head provides a more direct route across the factory; however, you see no way to get up there from here.
  
  A long chain dangles from overhead, its last few feet pooled on the floor next to a bank of controls.
  
  > pull the lever
  You feel something click as the lever activates a hidden releasing mechanism; then, suddenly, the chain snaps up into the air with a loud metallic rattle. You quickly step back as a large block of heavy equipment -- attached to the other end of the chain -- comes plummeting down from the ceiling. At the last instant, a system of reducing pulleys slows the block's descent and prevents it from crashing into the floor.
  
  > examine the equipment
  A dense conglomeration of tubes and compressors packed into a sturdy metal frame; a bit like a cooling unit from the back of a refrigerator, only larger and even more technical looking. It's securely attached to the end of a chain, which in turn must be attached to some kind of pulley system up near the ceiling.
  
  > get on it
  You get onto the block of heavy equipment.
  
  > pull the lever
  The lever pulls down and then snaps back up -- ka-chunk!
  
  > Go north
  You'll have to get off the block of heavy equipment first.
  
  > Go outside
  You get off the block of heavy equipment.
  
  The catwalk stretches north, a narrow ribbon of metal grillwork dangling fifty feet over the factory floor and shuddering dangerously in time with the machines beneath it. There are no railings of any kind. At the far end you can see what looks like a wide balcony with several large banks of equipment.
  
  A large block of heavy equipment hangs in the air just a foot or two beyond the edge of the catwalk.
  
  > look at the balcony
  You can't see it very well from here. It looks to be a workshop of some kind, with workbenches and several large banks of equipment.
  
  > go to the north
  Several workbenches and racks of arcane electronic equipment have been dragged together to form a sort of open laboratory on this wide balcony overlooking the mill. A wide table dominates the area, strewn with precision tools, bits of wire, and scribbled calculations. To the south, a narrow catwalk hangs above the mill floor, and a metal ladder leads down into the machinery below.
  
  Prominent among the strange tools scattered across the table is a strange caliper-like instrument.
  
  On the workbenches are some notes and some arcane electronic equipment.
  
  One of the racks contains a number of circular mirrors, stacked side by side like dishes in a dishwasher.
  
  Tacked up on the wall is a large technical blueprint.
  
  > take the calipers
  You pick up the calipers. Made of stainless steel, molded in a strangely flowing, almost organic design, the calipers -- if that is what they are -- resemble no other tool you've ever seen. It has three independently adjustable arms, each ending in a needle-point pincer, which fold back on themselves at grotesque, asymetrical angles toward a floating center point. There is a calibrated readout set near the base, which presumably provides a measure of whatever strange contortion of space is occupied by whatever object is placed between the pincers at the tool's other end.
  
  > Measure 1
  (the mirror labeled #1)
  (with the calipers)
  The instrument holds the mirror delicately clamped between its pincers; the readout reads "0.0191".
  
  > put the caliper on the bench
  You put the calipers on the workbenches.