This wonderful idea was inspired by another; I cannot claim credit.  And for that reason, this list may be incomplete.

Everyone has a special creature they relate to, their “spirit animal.”  To find their spirit animal, some people go on mystical quests into the desert, searching for an inner vision to give them guidance.  Some people just get wicked drunk or take lots of drugs. 

However, perhaps there are easier ways to diagnose someone’s spirit animal.  Could the answer reside in, of all places, in how he or she takes their coffee?

Hummingbird: decaf, 27 sugars.

Squirrel: hazelnut, light roast. Sprinkle of nutmeg.

Black bear: venti, extra milk, honey, shot of syrup.

Sloth: straight vodka, splash of absinthe.

Panda: chai tea. Hipster.

Badger: Irish coffee, hint of nutmeg.

Grizzly bear: Salmon flavored. You don’t have salmon?  Better get some.

Dog: I’ll just have whatever’s left over, thanks!  How are you doing today?  You must love this job!  It seems so fun, getting to help make people happy all day by getting them  coffee…

Cat: That one. What he has. Gimme. I want his.

Deer: Can you put salt in this?

Mosquito: Just a small, but I’m going to pay for it out of the tip jar…

Fish: Just water for me, thanks.

By the way, if anyone figures out their spirit animal from this, please, let me know!  Finally, my writing will be validated…

Continued from Part II.

I opened my eyes back up when my own beer arrived, the frothy liquid sloshing back and forth in the glass.  “I’d be pretty upset,” I replied.  “I mean, I’ve been playing for years!  If someone thinks that I sound like I’ve only been playing for a few months, they’re basically telling me that I suck at bass.”

Gerry pointed one finger at me triumphantly.  “Exactly!  And yet, they meant the comment very earnestly, so good luck trying to keep your anger focused on them!  Here’s another one.  Let’s say that, at work, you’ve been polishing a proposal for months, editing and trying to make it as perfect as possible.  You go in and present it to your coworker, and he tells you that it’s a really good first draft.  What’s your response?”

“Well, I suppose that my first instinct would be to get upset at him, and yell at him that I’ve been working on it for months,” I said.

“At which point, he apologizes, says that he didn’t realize, and then, after a pause that’s just a half-second too long, he says that it’s still really good.”  Gerry grinned as I shifted back and forth in my seat, trying to cover my frustration.  “Now, you really can’t be upset at your coworker.  He’s being honest, and really working to stay nice.  So you’ve got all this anger, this frustration, and nowhere to direct it!”

I was finally starting to see what my new acquaintance was getting at.  “So the longer he goes on, the more insulted I get, even though he’s saying nothing but kind things,” I summed up.  “God, that’s just evil!”

“Ah, but it works!” Gerry rightly pointed out.  “And best of all, it’s both immediately stinging, but also long-lasting, coming back to eat away at your self-confidence hours later, when you’re trying to fall asleep at night!  It’s really the best way to cause some psychological damage.”

Gerry nodded once again at Ned, still sitting at the other end of the bar.  “Now, say that you wanted to insult that fine gentleman again,” he went on.  “What might you say?”

I turned and studied my target, sizing him up.  “Compliments, right?”

“Compliments.”

“I suppose I’d tell him that I was envious of him, being able to spend all day in here drinking,” I hypothesized.  “Not having any family members to nag at him, free to do whatever he wanted instead of having to please anyone else.”

“Hah, not bad!” Gerry complimented me with a grin.  “What else?”

I considered the challenge for another minute.  “Maybe I’d ask him about the history of the bar?  Comment how he must have been here when it first opened, and ask how it’s changed?  Make a dig at his age?”

Gerry was smiling widely.  “I think you’ve got the hang of this, now!” he said.  “Unintentional insults.  Trust me, my boy, that’s the key.”

I picked up my drink, taking a long pull.  This time, there was no choking as the cool liquid filled my mouth.  Despite my initial black mood, my outlook had lightened as I talked with Gerry, and I didn’t feel quite as bad about my situation.  Sure, I was out of a job, but I had unemployment benefits, a decent resume, and there were certain to be plenty of other places hiring.  I would find a way to land on my feet.  And for now, I did have the freedom to do nothing but sit, drink, and relax.

Continued from Part I.

“Listen,” Gerry began, “there are two ways to insult someone.  Intentionally, and unintentionally.  Here, I’ll show you.  Insult me.”

I raised my eyebrows at the bald fellow, but he seemed serious enough.  “Uh… you’re old and bald,” I offered.  I wasn’t sure exactly how harsh I should go.

Gerry didn’t seem phased by this terrible, incredibly offensive attack, however; he merely nodded, as if accepting that I was right.  “Yep, sure am,” he confirmed, still nodding.  “Now, if you had said something that was actually hurtful, like telling me that I had a tiny dick and I deserved to go die in a fire, well, I would have been a bit hot and bothered.  But insults like that?  Easily shrugged off, and most of the time they really don’t stick with a fellow.  They’re temporary.”

I’m confused.  I took another swig of my drink to cover up the blank look on my face, but Gerry still spotted it.  “Those, you see, are just intentional insults,” he went on.  “And although they make us feel better when we yell them at someone else, they don’t mesh with what we believe about ourselves.”

My face must still have showed my confusion.  “Like this,” Gerry continued.  “You’re an imbecile.  You are.  Now, how’s that make you feel?”

I shrugged.  “Honestly, it doesn’t really bother me,” I said.

“Exactly!” he replied.  “Because in your head, you know that you aren’t an imbecile.  Your internal image of yourself is that you’re a pretty smart guy.  So when I call you something that doesn’t match your internal view, your brain rejects it, brushes it off.”

This actually made some sense.  “Isn’t there some psychological theory about that?” I asked.  I could vaguely remember reading about something like this, what seemed to be a million years ago in college.

Gerry shrugged.  “Probably.  But this means that, if you really want to hurt someone with an insult, you have to take an entirely different approach.”

“Do you have to get something that they actually believe, inside their heads?” I guessed.  “Strike at their inner weakness?”

“If you do, sure, that’ll land a knockout punch,” Gerry acceded.  He paused to raise a finger to our bartender, who nodded and busied himself pouring a beer from one of the taps.  “But good luck spotting someone’s weakness like that – especially on a stranger, like Ned over there.”  He nodded across the bar at the gray-haired man, who cackled as he lifted his glass in a mock toast.  “No, there’a much easier method, one that won’t rely on guesswork.”

I was leaning forward a bit in my seat, and I had finished the rest of my drink without noticing – Gerry could tell that I was interested, hanging on his words.  He grinned, obviously enjoying being the center of attention.  “You gotta insult them unintentionally,” he imparted, as if sharing a great secret.

I sat back a little.  “You’ve got me confused again,” I confessed.

Gerry waved one hand in the air in a vague and meaningless gesture.  “Let’s go back to that internal picture of yourself,” he said.  “Now, you don’t believe that you’re an idiot, but nobody, on the inside, is really, truly, confident in themselves.  Like you.  What’s something that you’re good at?”

At first, I thought of mentioning my job, but that idea was quickly squashed – if I was truly good at it, I wouldn’t have been kicked to the curb.  “I can play a pretty decent bass guitar,” I offered, my head filled briefly with visions of my garage band from college.

“Sure, that works.  Now, imagine that you were at a party, you picked up a bass guitar, you played a couple songs.  You’re enjoying yourself, and then one of the other party guests walks up and comments that your playing sounds great!  Before you can thank him, however, he guesses that you must have been playing for three or four months.  Now, how are you feeling?”

I closed my eyes for a minute as I envisioned this scenario.  A clink next to me signaled the arrival of Gerry’s beer.  “And one for this gentleman, too,” he commented.

To be continued…

“A toast!” my friend sitting on the opposite side of the table from me cried, raising her glass.

Obligingly, my buddy and I both paused in our intense scrutiny of our phones and reached for our glasses. My buddy had a complaint, however. “Wait a minute,” he said. “We can’t toast with water, can we?  Isn’t that bad luck?”

I looked down at the table. As we had decided to go out for brunch, there wasn’t exactly an abundance of alcohol. “What about coffee?” I offered.

“I thought it had to contain booze,” my buddy insisted.

Across the table, my friend waved away the strands of this discussion impatiently. “We can toast just fine with water!” she snorted.

“Ideally,” I snuck in, “we should be toasting with some toast.”

My friend bathed me with her blank stare, and I could tell that she was trying her hardest to vaporize me with her mind. My buddy next to me chuckled after a second, however, so I considered it a success.

We all lifted our glasses of water. “What are we toasting to?” my buddy asked. He paused for a moment, considering his upraised glass. “Where did toasting come from, anyway?”

“Ugh!” my friend groaned, but I had an answer ready.

“As I understood it, toasting was a way for the nobility to compete over status,” I offered.

They turned to me, cups still upraised. “What?” they asked en masse.

“Well, when you toast, you all slam your cups together, right?  And the goal is to spill your opponents’ drinks, not your own!  Like jousting!”

Across the table, my friend shook her head a little. “I don’t think that’s right,” she interjected.

“Sure it is!  That’s why they all drank out of big jewel-encrusted goblets!  Those cups gave them a lot of mass, to better topple their opponents!”

My friend was still shaking her head, but my buddy next me then spoke up.  “No, dude, you’re all wrong,” he broke in. “I think the grape growers made it up, to help sell more wine and subsidize the wine industry.”

My friend on the other side of the table lowered her glass. “Never mind,” she said, her tones ringing with disappointment. “Our food’s here anyway.”

Rubbing my forehead with the back of one hand, I hauled open the heavy wooden door and stepped into the bar.  I had always enjoyed the throwback atmosphere of the bar, just down the street from where I worked.  Had used to work, I mentally reminded myself.  Had to get used to using the right script.

After my eyes had adjusted to the internal gloom of the bar, I sidled up to the counter, finding a spot equally between the few grizzled old men that seemed to be permanent fixtures around the counter.  I didn’t make eye contact with any of them, but a gray-haired fellow on my left still began grunting as he slid closer to me.  “Bit early for yeh to be drinking, doncha think?” he wheezed out through the bent bars of his remaining teeth.

The old-timer was right; I usually didn’t show my face in the bar for another few hours, when work let out and happy hour began.  Today, of course, I didn’t have to wait that long.  Another advantage of being unemployed, I suppose.

I ignored the man, instead raising a finger to catch the bartender’s attention.  “Whiskey, double,” I requested, when the man sauntered over.  He nodded without speaking a word, turning and ambling off, taking his sweet time to prepare my beverage.

Fortunately, as there were no other placed orders to compete with mine, my drink arrived in front of me in short order.  I traded the bartender my credit card for the drink and took a long pull.  I was still on edge, however, overwhelmed by the stress of the day, and some of the fiery liquid went down the wrong tube.  I choked, coughing as I slammed the glass back down on the bar.

The gray-haired man, now sitting next to me, let out another wheezing bray.  “Di’nt your dad ever teach yeh houw to drink?” he got out between laughs.  “First rule is that you’re sposed to swallow!”

I glared at this annoying boil of a man.  “Screw you,” I told him, taking another pull of my drink.  This time, it went down properly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the man on my other side, this fellow nearly completely bald, also scooting closer to me across the bolted-down bar stools.  “What?” I snapped, turning to him.  My anger was fully raging by this point, helped along by the heat rising from my belly.  “You got something to say as well?”

Instead of sneering at me, however, this fellow merely put on a slightly self-satisfied looking grin.  “Actually, I was going to correct you,” he said, and I was forced to slightly alter my opinion of him.  Despite his wrinkles, this man still had all of his teeth, and was currently giving me a million-watt smile.  His voice was also slightly clipped, giving him a barely perceptible cultured accent.  “You’re doing it wrong.”

“Doing what wrong?”

“Insulting,” the bald man replied.  He had by now reached the stool next to mine, and he offered his hand to me.  “Gerry,” he said.

“Arthur,” I replied, taking the proffered hand.  Gerry gave it a single brisk pump, and then released – the kind of handshake I had grown accustomed to at my old job in finance.  “You’re saying that I’m insulting him wrong?  Is there a right way?”

Gerry kept up his smile.  “Perhaps not a right way or a wrong way,” he said, “but there is definitely a better way and a worse way.  And you, my new friend, are using the worse way, I’m afraid.”

On my other side, I saw the gray-haired man roll his eyes and begin shuffling back to his original spot, where he had abandoned his drink, but I was interested.  Gerry sounded as though he was slipping into a lecture, as if speaking in front of a class.  I might be a class of one, but I gave him my full attention.

To be continued!

No, this isn’t connected to any other story yet.  Just a bit of post-apocalyptic character building.

As I gazed around the interior of the ruined building, uneasily noticing how the other members of Terry’s crew seemed to occupy their spare time by using pointy objects to pick at their teeth or nails, or sharpen their blades, something nagged at the back of my mind.  Something about Terry’s description of his allies.

“Wait a minute,” I said, turning towards Terry.  He was still standing beside me, obviously enjoying my discomfort, thrust into this world with which I was totally unfamiliar.  “You said that you had four other people in your crew, right?”

“I did,” he agreed, grinning at me.  His hands hung free, but I knew that, if I made the slightest aggressive move, he would have the pistol at his waist free in a heartbeat.  Although I doubt he’d waste a bullet on me.  Not when a knife would work just as well, and be much cheaper.

I glanced around the dusty, shadowed interior.  “I only count three,” I said, my eyes roaming over each of them in turn.  Jhang was using a dagger to clean his nails, perched contentedly atop an overturned shelving unit.  Kali was using a whetstone to hone her many daggers; a small pile sat on the ground beside her, waiting to be sharpened before she would tuck them back up her sleeves.  And Wade, whom I had yet to hear utter a sentence more than three words long, was sitting cross-legged atop a small stool, his eyes closed in meditation and his long, straight-edged blade lying across his lap.

“We’re a tight-knit crew, sure, but there’s always more to be done around this place,” Terry commented, spreading his hands wide to take in the disarray.  “So sometimes, while most of us are out on missions, like retrieving you, I’ll send one or two of us off to get some real work done.”  His eyes flicked away from my face, over my shoulder.  “Ah, and here he is now!”

I turned, and was stunned as I took in the newcomer.  I couldn’t believe he had managed to get this close to me before I noticed him.

Approaching at a slow tread was the largest man that I had ever seen.  He stood well over seven feet in height, and had shoulders as wide as axe handles.  Each hand, hanging open loosely at his side, must have been as big as a dinner plate.  He was walking with his back slightly hunched, but I was still amazed that he was able to fit through a door frame.

“Our last member!” Terry declared loudly as the giant joined our rough, ragged circle.  “Meet Smasher.  Oh, it’s an obvious name, to be sure, but it just suits him so well!”

The giant gave a slight grumble, a low-pitched rumbling noise deep in his throat.  Terry crossed in front of me, reaching up to pat the massive man’s arm in a curiously dismissive manner.  “Smasher doesn’t do much talking,” Terry went on.  “Not really his thing.  But he’s our go-to for the heavy lifting, and he certainly pulls his load!”

I looked back up at Smasher.  Now that I looked closer, I could see that his wide face was curiously childlike.  He had a protruding brow which, coupled with his wide, flattened nose, made him appear slightly as though he had walked face-first into a wall.  His eyes, nestled deep into his face, looked calm, unworried.  That made one of us, I thought darkly to myself.

“Wonderful,” I said, directing my voice towards Terry as I surreptitiously took a step or two away from the group.  “So now you’ve brought me here, under the threat of violence-“

“Implied violence, mate!” Terry interrupted.

Behind us, Kali laughed, a sharp, harsh sound.  “As if there’s any real difference,” she spat out.  “No room for sneaky lies or fancy words in this world any more.”

Terry made a tutting sound, clicking his tongue at her.  “Oh, subtlety is alive and well!” he insisted.  “But yes, Ambassador, we have brought you here for a reason.  Oh, that is very certain.”

“And what reason is that, pray tell?”

The leader of this villainous gang swung his hand wide, arcing around to indicate the dark recesses of the large building that held us, pointing off down the dim corridors.  “We may be some of the best out here in this God-forsaken wasteland, but look at our digs!” he exclaimed.  “This place isn’t much more than a hovel.  No power, no light – basically every system that could break has done so.”

I nodded.  “Sure, but I don’t see what this has to do with me.”

Terry’s finger, previously taking in the decay, now swung around to point straight at my chest.  I noted uneasily out of the corner of my eye that Kali had stopped sharpening her blades, and that her and Jhang’s eyes were locked on mine.  “You, my dear boy,” Terry said, “are going to fix it.”

Continued from Part IV.  Start from Part I here.

I gingerly made my way out of the control room, winding my way through the maze of hallways as I took my roundabout approach towards the power core.  As with most ships, the power core was located towards the rear, where it would be close to the engines for easier conduit access, and further away from the living quarters in case of meltdown.  Unfortunately, as the control room was at the bow of the ship, this meant that I had plenty of distance to cover.

As I hurried along, keeping my eyes peeled for potential dangers, I made sure to glance into each room that I passed.  I was moving through the crew’s quarters, and normally these halls would be filled with bustling activity.  My men should be running about, each with his own task to accomplish.  Restocking, cleaning, checking levels for various internal systems within the ship – these were all vital jobs.  But the rooms were deserted.  I didn’t even see any bodies.  The rooms looked neat, undisturbed, and spookily vacant.

At the end of this corridor, I reached a set of blast doors, pausing and gathering my wits.  This was the access point to one of the larger cargo holds.  The doors had sealed, but instrument readings claimed that the other side hadn’t suffered a breach and was still accessible.  I had the override code.

I felt that nasty little sliver of doubt rearing its head inside my brain.  Were the sensors malfunctioning?  Was I going to open this door, only to be sucked out into the void of space?  Was that what had happened to my previous iterations, forcing repeated reboots?

As I stood there, my finger poised over the access terminal, I glanced down, and noticed that there was some dirt on the floor of the hallway.  For a moment I felt irritated, making a mental note to chastise whomever was on cleaning duty.  A moment later, however, the significance of this hit me.

Reaching down, I ran a finger through the dirt, noting how it loosely stuck to my finger.  There couldn’t be vacuum on the other side of this door, or the dirt would have been sucked away!  Feeling more confident, I straightened up and keyed in the code on the access panel.

The door slid open with the slight whoosh of compressed air, and there was no sucking void on the other side.  I let out the breath that I didn’t know I had been holding, and made my way inside.

There may still have been atmosphere inside the cargo hold, but the lights had gone out, and I carefully picked my way through the large stacks of crates in near-darkness.  I briefly considered turning around and looking for a handheld torch to light the way, but I had been through this cargo hold many times before, and was able to see just enough in the dim near-darkness to avoid any collisions.  In a few minutes, I had made it to the other side, poised to key in the code to open the blast door on the far side.

I raised my finger to the pad, feeling out the keys, but then paused.  As I had slid my hand over the frame of the blast door, searching for the keypad in the darkness, I had felt something else, slight grooves in the frame.  A moment later, my fingers found them again.  The grooves were very shallow, no more than scratches, but there were four of them, and I realized, with a thrill of horror, that they aligned perfectly with my fingers.

I pulled my hand away from the keypad as though it was burning hot.  In my head, I could see myself being sucked through the doorway as the blast doors slid aside, scrabbling uselessly at the side of the door to try and hold on as I was pulled out into the unforgiving void of space.

Sucking in a deep breath, I took a step back, away from the door and the void that must have waited on the other side.  This must have gotten at least a couple of those reboots; those grooves were too deep to have been left by only a single person.  I shuddered as I thought about that last minute of realization when, as they were being pulled out, the previous copies of myself must have felt the grooves and realized that this had happened to them before.

As my heart rate returned to some semblance of normal, however, I began taking stock of the situation once again.  The power core was still severely damaged on the ship, and this meant that there was no way to access it for repairs.

I was, well and truly, stranded.

Continued in Part VI.

Continued from Part III.  Start from Part I here.

I stumbled along as I ran for the bridge, climbing up the half-flights of stairs to access the upper deck of the ship.  On this higher level, I could see definite signs of damage.  Some of the lights, normally providing a pleasant underglow, had been knocked out and left dark areas in the corridor.  I guessed that they had been overloaded by a power surge.

As I hurried along, I suddenly was brought to a stop by another sight, something that sent a tremor of fear running down my spine.  The upper levels of my ship had been equipped with small portholes, granting the crew a limited view of what lay beyond, in the reaches of space.  Most of the time, I ignored them completely, as there was nothing to see outside.

But now, as I gazed at the small, thick window that offered a slightly smudged view of the starry expanse, I could see a faint white line, creeping up from the bottom of the window.  I reached out and tapped on the glass with a finger, only to watch as, with a screech at the far edge of hearing, the crack expanded another inch up the glass.

This was serious.  If that glass gave, we would all be dead, and no number of reboots would fix that.  I had to hurry.

Not bothering to exercise caution any more, I sprinted down the rest of the hallway until I reached the large door at the far end.  Unfortunately, I saw as I skidded to a stop, the door was closed, sealed shut and inaccessible without using the wall-mounted access panel.

I stared at the keypad on the wall, my mind going blank.  I knew the combination, I was sure of it – but I couldn’t remember what it was!  I reached out, flipping down the cover on the panel.  After a moment, I peered closer – something seemed to be scratched on the inside.

2875
     -CR

It looked as though the numbers had been scratched down with the tip of a knife.  I wondered why a previous version of myself had known the code, when I didn’t remember it now.  Maybe, I briefly considered, this had been carved by the original version of myself, before I had first been hit by something enough to trigger a reboot, which would then wipe the information from my memory.

There wasn’t much point in thinking about it too much now.  I reached up and punched in the letter sequence.  For what felt like an eternity, the screen continued to glow baleful red at me, and then finally:

Code Approved; Access Granted

With a hiss, the door began to slowly slide open.  At first, I was about to rush forward and try and slip inside, but then I remembered those fourteen slash marks on the paper in the mess hall.  I restrained myself instead, keeping one hand on the access panel, my finger poised over the close button should I be greeted by a dangerous sight.

As the door opened, however, I saw no immediate danger.  What I did see, however, was the glowing, blinking, furious red of a control panel where many, many things were going wrong.  As soon as I was sure that there was no other danger, I hurried in, staring down in dismay at the confusion before me.

“Computer, run diagnostics!” I commanded, my fingers flying over the keys.

After a moment, one of the few remaining undamaged screens flickered to life:

Voiceprint accepted.  Welcome back, Captain Reynolds.
Running diagnostic scan…
…
…
…
Warning: scan reveals multiple issues at code three or higher:
 -Extensive damage detected to Reboot™ system.  RealScan system software is unable to function; hardware damage is critical.  
 -Ship’s power core is offline.  Connection to power core has been severed.  Unable to reactivate.
 -Multiple hull breaches detected.  No repair process is possible at this time due to lack of power.

I groaned, running a hand through my hair.  I was definitely in trouble.

I keyed in a few more lines of code, pulling up the few security cameras that were still functioning.  The bottom deck, down by the cargo hold, looked as though it had been breached in multiple locations.  Fortunately, it looked as though the blast doors leading up to the main and upper levels had successfully sealed, their automatic circuits detecting the loss of atmosphere and closing to protect the rest of the vessel.  But this meant that I had very few options for accessing the power core.

Nonetheless, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get anything else done, be able to escape to safety, without the ship functioning, without the ship having power.  There looked like there was still one route open.  I didn’t doubt that in my previous visits, before being rebooted, I would have seen this option.  But I had no other choice – I had to take it.

Continued in Part V…

Continued from Part II.  Start from Part I here.

As I turn away from the computer terminal, a sobering thought suddenly worms its way into my head: what if I’ve already discovered this before?  What if I’ve already awoken, found out what I know now, and gone to the terminal, only to die and be rebooted, with no memory of what had just happened?

As I explore this thought, it grows in intensity, worming into my thoughts and leaving me feeling discomforted and unsure.  What would be a good way to avoid this?  After a minute, an answer comes to me; in case something does happen to me, I should leave behind a message!

Still standing in the mess hall, I look around for something with which to leave a message.  Aha!  There’s a piece of paper sitting on top of a nearby table, held in place by a mug with a pen sitting inside.  Perfect.  I reach over, picking it up, but the blood in my veins runs cold as I look at what’s written on the paper.

Captain Reynolds,

This is me.  Well, you, now, I suppose.  Whatever.  Look, I’ve found out that somehow, our memory module has been compromised, so the reboot system can’t save the most recent memories.  I’m headed down to fix it now, but I just realized that there’s a chance that, if I die, the rebooted version of me won’t remember doing this before.  So, I’m leaving this note.  

Signing off, 
Captain Reynolds

I set the note down.  So my suspicions were correct.  I have done this before.  At least once, since I’ve written myself a note.  Glancing at the pen, I suppose that maybe I should leave a count, to make it clear that I’ve been here once before.  I look down at the note and then flip it over.  As I see the backside, however, I gasp, and feel the blood pounding in my head.

Number of times I have read this note:
|||/| \||/| ||\|

Fourteen times.  Fourteen times, I’ve read this!  With shaking fingers, I add another slash mark on to the tally, and then carefully put the note back.  After sucking in a deep breath, I square my shoulders and try to muster my courage.  I must be cautious.  

I step out into the hall, carefully advancing down towards the control room.  At the slightest noise, I freeze, ready to spring backwards or turn and flee, but I see nothing out of the ordinary.  Indeed, a few minutes later, I’ve reached the entrance to the control room without incident.  I reach up and key in my sequence, unlocking the door.  With a soft whoosh of compressed air, it slides open, revealing the dim lighting and blinking LEDs of the ship’s main computer.

I quickly move through the towers of computer equipment, but stop short.  “That’s definitely the problem,” I say aloud, staring at the ruin of a computer tower in front of me.  Some sort of electrical fire must have broke out; the entire tower is scorched and black, and the plastic and metal of the wires has melted into a streaky puddle at the floor.  There’s no way that anything this severe can be repaired.  No wonder the computer was malfunctioning so much.

As I step closer, I notice another note, this one held haphazardly pinned to the ruined tower with a twisted piece of wire.

To myself:

Man, writing these notes is weird.  As you can see, the tower’s beyond repair; this part of the system controlled the reboot scanning equipment, so we can’t save recent memories without it.  No idea why the engines are malfunctioning, though.  I’m headed to the bridge next.

Reynolds

Well, at least I know where to go next.  I glance at the back of this note, but there’s no similar, disturbing tally.  Not that I’ve encountered any problems yet.  I need to remember to stay on my highest alert.

Continued in Part IV…