Down a long and endless hall one might fear that they traveled amongst something far greater than themselves. The black bird that had traveled down the straight, grandiose tunnel could not shake the ominous sensation that a giant bird or beast would leap forth from the haze emanating from the unknown. On and on the corridor stretched, when suddenly…

The crow reached the end of the hall and another room of puzzles awaited him. Or perhaps “a-weighted” him would be more appropriate, as various weights decorated the floor inside the box.

Outside the box the lab wasn’t as dirty as before, but it would be difficult for an honest and picky person to say it was cleaner. There were no dirt patches, but instead more weights littered several desks. Where there could have been breathing room from the weights there was instead messy books with gibberish in them. Unfortunately, the crow couldn’t discern whether he was illiterate or the books were actually gibberish.

Back to the matter at hand: there were weights lined up, but with no particular order. ‘Simple enough’ thought the crow, who flew up and pulled at the ring handles of the trapezoids that varied greatly in mass. Putting them in order from smallest to largest caused a door to open.

Inside the next room the crow beheld a spectacle he could never imagine: more slabs of metal with differentiating mass and density! Said weights looked to be involved in a puzzle of sorts, a query that would require wit and stratagem to solve.

Shaking out of his sarcasm, the avian analyzed the puzzle in earnest: six weights of varying mass surrounded a scale in a hexagonal pattern, each weight at an edge. The scale’s left pan was held down by a weight while the other plate was empty. The entire middle section of the scale was surrounded by a plastic pillar, a twig near the top of the scale’s middle section, as well as a slit on the other end that led to a chute. The chute slit was too thin and long for the crow to wedge his beak inside. On the roof of the scale was a plate that held a key; the twig could only move in and out, meaning the key had to be within its tiny range.

Fluttering back down to the earth, the crow eyed the pieces of metal and realizing they all held different numbers on them. The black bird was about to dismiss the numbers, but something sparked.

From the deepest abyss within the darkest recesses of the bird’s mind simple arithmetic emerged. The smallest weight read 1, then 4, then 5, 8, 9, and the largest read 10. Flapping back up, the weight on the pan read 7.

Without hesitating, the crow lifted the nine and put it with the seven on the left, taking the ten, five, and one and putting them on the right. With the weights balancing out, the key moved to the middle, the crow pushed it down the chute and took the key. Looking around, he could see the door to the next puzzle room was already opened. At least the first one was.

The next puzzle was already staring him in the face: a hallway of doors that had pull strings in front of them. Putting the key down, the crow pulled the string and the door went up. The crow let go of the string and picked up the key, but the door slammed shut on his way down.

Dragging the 10-weight to the string, the crow made sure the door wouldn’t shut on him this time, but there was a new problem: once he passed the tricky string door, there was another door, and squinting the bird could see a couple more proceeding it. Travelling back and forth, the crow brought all the weights to the door and strung up the one weight next, but it wasn’t enough to open the door.

“CAW CAW CAW!” He crowed as he flung feathers flustered and frustrated. Furiously the bird’s calls continued, becoming shriller and more forced. “Caw! Caw…caw.” Eventually he calmed down, pushing his wings in line, and untied the 10-weight to find the lightest weight that could support the door. 1. The 1-weight was all it took. Then he found the 4-weight was enough for the second door. After many failed assumptions, 9 for the third. 5 for the fourth. 10 for the fifth and 8 for the last.

Ponderous as he picked up the key, the bird pushed the metal stick into the lock, turned it, and proceeded into the grayish light.

“Ivan Joseph, day 44:

My third experiment is going okay. Many of the test subjects struggled, some gave up, but just as many succeeded. Unfortunately, this is the worst possible result, as a total success or failure would’ve been easy to understand.

When I reported to Sharp, he took my success less joyously. I’m not exactly sure what part of the last experiment was better than this one, but I figure he was at least a little impressed. Still I’m beginning to worry that my job might be in jeopardy.”