337

Shortly, you arrive at the medicine storage facility. The elation you feel at having found it so quickly is dampened when you switch on the lights and take stock of your surroundings. Tens of thousands of bottles and containers line the shelves and, to make matters worse, you soon discover that all the drugs classified as poisonous or under FDA control are locked away in a vault-like room, protected by a steel door and a sophisticated combination lock. It could take you a week to search the shelves, and considerably longer to force open the vault door.

Hoping to get lucky, you search through the store’s card index system, looking for the Atropine listing. You find it, but your worse fears are confirmed when you see that the stock records are printed on a red card. Atropine is classified as a poison and is therefore kept locked away inside the vault.

With dread, you examine the combination lock. It is an electronic device, consisting of three groups of three numbers, each group arranged in the shape of an ‘L’. One of the numbers in the last group is missing. When the correct number is tapped in here, it completes the sequence and releases the lock. Consider the following numbers carefully. When you think you know the missing number, turn to the entry that bears the same number as your answer.⁸

If you cannot solve the security code, turn to 164.