from: the Asimov collection



                                     FISH!
                          (Rainbird/Magnetic Scrolls)

    You start swimming upside down in a goldfish bowl in the body of a
    goldfish, enjoying a month's break between jobs after foiling the Seven
    Deadly Fins who unfortunately got away. Suddenly a tacky plastic castle
    drops into the bowl. You realise there's a message in the castle for
    you.

    "Turn over" , "in" . Sir Playfair Panchax, head of Mission  HQ, says
    the Fins are up to their old tricks again. They've stolen a focus wheel
    and dismantled it. You must find the pieces.

    A glass box and three warps appear. The warps are jagged, smooth and
    small. The box is closed.

    The Small Warp

    "Go through small warp". You find yourself in a recording studio. The
    producer tells you to make a cup of coffee. The kitchen is locked and
    you can't enter it. Rod is standing nearby so "Rod, make coffee" ; he
    does so and will do whenever you are asked to make it.

    Examine the bin to find a ferric cassette. Get it. Go to the far west
    end of the corridor, open wooden door and "switch switch" it puts a
    light on in the room to the south so you can enter. Go in and get the
    metal and chrome cassettes.

    Go back to the corridor and open secondary door. Close the door and
    press the button. This switches on the red light outside so when the
    producer comes to get you to make more coffee, he thinks you're working
    and goes away again.

    Open small cupboard, get head cleaner from it. "Play cleaner in player"
    (Note, don't put it in or a bug stops you completing this bit). Examine
    amplifier; it has one fader which is used to set the volume and can be
    set from 0 to 11 and is currently on 0. If you try to play a tape, you
    can't hear it so "set fader to 3".

    "Play ferric cassette in player, play chrome cassette in player, play
    metal cassette in player" (any order). When the third tape is played,
    you hear the producer's voice reminding them of the beat eg no, like
    this, 3,4,2 (random).

    Leave this room and go and open door to the office. Go in and examine
    the filing cabinet. It has a combination lock on it, set to a random
    number. "Set lock to 342" or whatever you heard on the tape. The
    cabinet is now unlocked. Open it, look into it. You see a spindle. Get
    it. The Fins try to stop you but you escape to the goldfish bowl where
    the spindle falls into the glass box.

    The Smooth Warp

    "Go through smooth warp". You are in a human body by a tree stump in a
    forest. Examine the stump; inside is a gold disc and micky Blowtorch,
    an ex-operative who has gone warp-crazy. He won't let you take the disc
    and be careful not to go near him when you are carrying anything you
    find.

    Go to the smithy. Inside is a bird cage containing a parrot and a
    mould. The parrot will explode after a certain number of moves. Open
    the cage; the parrot won't leave and you can't get it out. Leave the
    location, it flies out into the forest where it will explode later.

    Go back in, open the cupboard to see some tongs, a crucible and a
    hammer. On the cupboard is a pair of gloves.

    Go back to the stump and wait till Micky leaves. He goes se to the wet
    forest. Get the disc and go s,s,e,e,e back to the smithy so you don't
    meet him.
    You only have a limited number of moves to complete this bit.

    Get the mould and everything from the cupboard. Wear the gloves. "Put
    disc in crucible, hold crucible with tongs, hold crucible in fire"; the
    disc melts, leaving a puddle of molten gold in the crucible.

    "Pour gold into mould". You now need to cool it and this can only be
    done in the cool glade but in certain areas it is raining and you must
    also not go past Micky! So go to the charred glade, n, ne to the dim
    forest, e to the cool glade.

    Wait three times, the mould cools. "Break mould with hammer". You see a
    crude gold ring. Get ring; one of the Fins appears but you just get the
    ring in time. You arrive back in the goldfish bowl, the ring drops into
    the glass box.

    The Jagged Warp.

    "Go through jagged warp". You are in a human body in the back of a van.
    Get and wear all the clothes. Ignore the blanket. In the front of the
    van is a note from Steve saying he's gone to get some diesel and will
    be back before dawn. "Search rubbish" to find a torch. "Light torch" or
    you can't leave the van. Go east to leave the van.

    If you aren't wearing all the clothes, your skin catches the light by
    the fire and alerts the hippies. Go to pew, get it. Turn torch off (or
    the beam wavers and alerts the hippies) and go to the ruined transcept
    and archway. Drop the pew here.

    Go down to catacombs, "search debris" to find a sarcophagus lid. Get
    it; you see an exit leading down. Drop lid.

    In the altar room, "examine altar"; one side has a hole where are
    gargoyle should be. There's a ceremonial cord on the altar. Get it.
    Go back to pew and "get on pew", go up to archway. "Tie cord to
    gargoyle", down, "pull cord"; you pull down the gargoyle and the arch
    making a terrible noise and the hippies look your way.

    Get gargoyle, go to catacombs, get lid and "put lid in doorway". The
    hippies arrive outside and talk. They decide you've been killed by the
    collapsing ceiling and leave.

    "Untie cord", go to altar room and "put gargoyle in hole"; the altar
    sinks into the ground as a column descends from the ceiling. "Examine
    column"; there's a chalice in a niche in it. "Look in chalice"; there's
    a grommet in it. "Get chalice".
    Get grommet; the hippies try to stop you and their leader (one of the
    Fins) tells you to hand it over. Suddenly a hole opens in the ceiling
    and you leap through. As you arrive back in the bowl, the grommet drops
    into the box.

    Note that you must look in the chalice to see and thus be able to get
    the grommet and getting the chalice triggers the hippies entering. So
    you must look in the chalice before you get it to be able to do this in
    one bit.

    Panchax says they'll open a warp into Hydropolis, the fish planet's
    capital. The Fins have set up a meterological imbalance on the planet,
    causing water to evaporate. The fish scientists devised a project to
    save the world but the Fins sabotaged it. You must help them complete
    the project in the body of their leader, Dr Roach. You now see a large
    warp.

    Hypropolis

    "Go through large warp". You arrive in Roach's apartment. One move
    after your arrival, the wall behind your fishton glows. It's the
    principal's secretary to confirm that the principal is expecting you at
    10 o'clock.

    Examine watch; it shows the time as 9.02 and you will find out by
    playing that you must save Hydropolis before 4 o'clock.

    Examine fishton; it's a glorified sofa. "Look behind fishton"; you find
    a travel pass. Get it. Examine shelf; there's a fishofax on it. It
    contains a fisa card (use to buy things) and a tatty card (you need it
    for identification to get into the lab).
    Examine switch; Roach rewired it to control the lights in the rest of
    the apartments in the building instead of his own! It's currently on.

    When you go to leave, you find the door is a sliding design operated by
    a silver hand print next to it. "Put hand on print" to open the door.

    On the landing there are two prints. The silver one operates your door
    and the gold one the apartment opposite which belongs to Chubb. Don't
    close your door as you want to be burgled!

    Go to Paddlington, and to the underground; you show your pass as you go
    through. Wait, if necessary, till the train arrives then "get onto
    train".

    There are 8 stations on the underground. You can leave at Pickerel,
    Bettersea,  Opah University, Eelport, Museum and Paddlington but not at
    Barbellican or Angel.

    Leave the underground at Pickerel and go to the clothing shop. "Buy tie
    and glasses with fisa". Go to music shop, "buy plugs with fisa".
    Go to secondhand shop. You see a radio case there but when you try to
    buy it you're told that Ernest Chubb has already bought it and it will
    be delivered to him later in the day. Also in the shop is the fishton
    from your apartment! "Buy fishton with fisa". Steve, the owner, says he
    will get Rod to deliver it to your apartment.

    Go to hardware shop. Examine hyperdriver; it's needed to remove lok
    screws. "Buy hyperdriver, screwdriver and bag with fisa".

    Go to Opah university to the Principal's office by 10. She explains
    that a junior member of your staff was taken over by a parasite and
    sabotaged the project. You are the only one who can investigate. She is
    going to see the government and will be back tomorrow.

    Go to the library. Inside is a book and if you open it, it opens at
    random to a page showing a colour picture of an item you have
    previously seen in the game. If you "open book at last page" or "open
    book at page 321", you see a picture of the glass box. "Tear out page";
    you rip it out and are thrown out of the library but the page isn't
    taken from you.

    Go to end of corridor and "put tatty card in slot" to enter your lab.
    Go to the store room where the wall chart shows a lot of items are out
    of stock ie filter, photon bridge, focus wheel, tuned crystal, suitable
    case, shelf. The shelf is a red herring!

    Examine the protocopier. There's a slot in one side and a switch on the
    other. It's on and uses a lot of power. "Put page in slot"; the glass
    box materialises. Turn the protocopier off.

    Go to the restaurant and "buy meal with fisa". The waiter says they're
    too busy but he will sell you a takeaway sachet of plankton. "Buy
    sachet with fisa".

    If you try to go north from the foyer, a student says you need an ID
    card. Dr Salmon has it and he's probably getting drunk in town.

    Go to the pub and examine the drunk; it's Salmon. "Buy mask with fisa".
    Steve hands you a mask. Don't use it yourself, give it to the drunk. He
    inhales, thanks you and says he'd give a token of his gratitude but
    he's destitute. "Ask Salmon for card"; he gives it to you.

    "Buy mask with fisa" and give it to someone else. Do it again and Steve
    asks if you'd like to buy a cylinder? "Buy cylinder with fisa"; a drunk
    with his left arm in a sling lurches into you and knocks it over. Het
    says he'll get you another one and takes that one. Playfair shouts that
    it's one of the Fins as he runs off, and that the cylinder must be
    important. They have a fix on him and you must follow him. They will
    open a warp in Dr Roach's apartment.

    Go to Paddlington. The fishton has been delivered to your flat and the
    radio case is on the landing, having been delivered for Chubb. Get it,
    go in to the apartment; there's now a dark warp there. Drop everything
    and "go through warp".

    Panchax says it's a place where the Fins have twisted the dimensions
    into a labyrinth. The cylinder is in a place where the only exit is up
    and if you get into a room with no exits, you're stuck till they get
    you out which may be too late for Hydropolis.

    To find the cylinder, someone said to me to think of the puzzle as a
    Rubik's Cube. Get rid of the corners first and then the sides........

    You start in a room with random exits. There is really only one room
    (as you can test by dropping something) but the exits change each time.
    Every other location has an up exit.

    What you must do is move, removing exits as you do so, until your last
    move removes the final exit, and that move must be one that adds an up.
    Therefore, if you were in a room with exits N, W and NW, moving NW
    would remove N, NW and W and add an UP, so the final room would be the
    one with the cylinder in it. If the room had been N, NW, W and UP, NW
    would have left a room with no exits as the up is removed anyway.

    The easiest way I found is to start by removing all "double" exits, eg
    NW, NE. Then remove "single" ones eg N, S. If you find yourself in the
    position of eg N, NE, E then move NE but if it is N, NE, E, UP move any
    way BUT NE as that would remove the last exit. This works every time
    but there is probably an easier way!

    eg N, E, S, SW, NW. Move NW to give
      E, S, SW, W, U. Move SW to give
      E. Move E to give
      N, NE, SE, S, U. Move NE to give
      E, SE, S. Move SE to give
      UP and the cylinder.

    At the last location, get the cylinder and go up. You end up in the
    lounge. Before leaving, turn off the switch.

    Go to the university and "put new card in slot" . Go in, drop
    everything except the new card, bag and cylinder. "Put cylinder in
    bag". Go to tower. The trapdoor is above the usual level of the water
    and too high for you to get through.

    "Open cylinder", the bag fills with gas and you float through the
    trapdoor. You can see the roof, a photon bridge and some railings.
    "Drop bag", so you don't float off. Get bridge, "climb railings", you
    land back by the statue (+11). If you take too long, your gills dry
    out. If you just jump, you die by falling into shallow water.

    Go to Museum. Go to alarm room. If you go north, you trigger an alarm;
    do it twice and you get killed. "Open sachet"; it disperses in the
    water and you can see the beams. North. You are now in the crystal
    room. Get crystal and go back south.

    Go to Battersea. You must first go north and go on the tour. Examine
    the gauge; it shows the output of the station and on the tour you
    learned that Battersea is only a secondary power station used during
    peak periods and to power the underground. The door will only open when
    the turbines stop ie the power isn't being used. The switch controls
    the power output of the station and is on.

    By now you must have turned off the photocopier and the switch in your
    apartment and you only have a certain number of moves once the doors
    open as a guard will come and put the switch on again. "Pull switch";
    the door opens. Go in to the grille and examine it to see a filter.
    Examine the filter to see a screw on it. "Remove screw with
    screwdriver"; you take the filter.

    Go back to Opah and use the new card to enter the research wing.
    Examine the tuna; it is used to adjust the receiving frequency of a
    given crystal. It is open."Put crystal in tuna, close tuna"; there's a
    ringing sound which dies away after about 20 seconds. "Open tuna" and
    get crystal.

    Go to lab. "Sit down" at terminal. When prompted to log on, "login", it
    asks for your name "Roach" and password; this is in the fishofax
    written backwards as EM, so use "me".

    By using the command "project" and then "store", you are told that you
    need a stream regulator as the old one was stolen. This is made up of a
    filter, photon bridge, focus wheel, tuned crystal (there's an untuned
    one in the museum but they won't let us have it) and a case. From
    "read" and "equipment", you are told the stream regulator = ((a + c) +
    (b + d)) + e.
    If you "read", "note", it's from the principal saying people are
    wasting time playing games. From "games" you learn that Bertie Bream
    plays a lot of games (as the principal tells you or Bertie Bream to
    stop playing games and go back to work) and also there is a game called
    Shutdown which can only be accessed by Bream so it looks as though he
    is the saboteur.
    When you have finished, "logout".

    Go  to device.  It looks like a large tank filled  with multicoloured
    gravel. There's a stream accelerator in it which accelerates particles
    gathered by the main project machine. There's a lok screw on it (if you
    try to remove it with the hyperdriver, it will explode as it's been
    booby-trapped. Sir Playfair says you must identify the saboteur as he'd
    know how to disarm it.)

    "Join wheel to filter" to make a focus filter. "Join crystal to bridge"
    to make a crystal bridge. "Join filter to bridge"; you make the only
    crystal filter in Fishworld. "Put filter in case"; they fuse to make a
    stream regulator. Get regulator (If necessary, drop it and get it to
    get the points!)

    Go back to the pub and "ask Bream to go to disco". He says he'll meet
    you there at 3.30pm and leaves.

    Go to disco and wait till 3.30 when he arrives. Wear the glasses and
    ear plugs ready so the lights and noise don't affect you. If you go
    north, Bream says he can't go in as he hasn't got a tie. "Give tie to
    Bertie". You can now go north. You are protected by the glasses and
    plugs but he passes out. You see something leave his body. He says he's
    done something to the project, needs a shower and rushes off.

    Go back to device and "remove lok screw with hyperdriver"; before you
    can remove it, Bertie bangs on the door and says to stop. It's booby
    trapped, linked to the computer game, Shutdown. You must stop the
    program counting down. He thinks his password is gravel.

    Go and log onto the computer again, this time as "Bream" using the
    password "gravel". Go to "games" and select "shutdown". It gives a
    random word eg UACCX and says you have so many minutes to change it to
    WATER. The number of minutes is the amount of time left to 4pm.

    You must alter one cell at a time. If you add one to cell 1, that is
    all that happens but adding 1 to cell 2 adds 2 to cells 1 and 3.
    Similarly, adding 1 to cell 3 adds 3 to cells 2 and 4 and adding 1 to
    cell 5 adds 4 to cells 4 and 1.

    The easy way is to start from cell 5 and working backwards to 1, change
    the word to WASCO. That way, as you alter lower numbered cells, the
    higher number ones will be altered to the letter you want!

    When you succeed, "logout", the lok screw is now safe to touch.

    Go  to device,  "remove lok screw with  hyperdriver,  get accelerator,
    put regulator in device, attach regulator with lok screw"; it snaps
    into place.

    Success! You return to Mission HQ for debriefing and are awarded with 3
    months R&R with the goldfish of your choice!!


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