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Once the program has been loaded into the console, you have to press either: 1 to select keyboard control, 2 for Interface 2 joystick control, 3 for Kempston joystick control, or 0 to play the first mission; you can also press M to turn the music (which, as in the first Thunderbirds game, is a remix of the show's theme song by Barry Gray, 1908-1984) off and on. If you press 1 , 2 , or 3 , the text "YOU SELECTED KEYS Z, X, O, K/INTERFACE 2/KEMPSTON. IS THIS OK Y/N?" shall appear on the screen - and if you press Y the game will proceed to the equipment selection screen, but if you press N it shall return to the previous screen. Assuming you pressed Y , you will now have to select two of six items (a torch, a lamp, a laser cutting tool, a bag of gobstoppers, a klaxon, and a grease can) for Alan Tracy (pilot of Thunderbird 3) to take on this mission; the correct items are the grease can and the lamp. You will now have to select two of the four remaining items for "Brains" (the Tracys' engineer, real name Hiram K. Hackenbacker) to take on the mission - and the correct items are the torch and the laser cutting tool (without all of these four items, you have no chance of winning).
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Once "Brains" has appeared at the bottom of the map shown above (indicated by the text "THIS IS INTERNATIONAL RESCUE - THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!" scrolling past at the top of the screen), you will have to start walking to the right, climb up a ladder, walk to the left, climb up another ladder, walk to the right (while watching for falling stalactites as they will decrease his energy if they hit him, and if either character runs out of energy on any mission, it will be aborted), drop the laser cutting tool and pick up a spanner. You will then have to walk back to the left (while again watching for falling stalactites), drop the torch and pick up a hammer - and once you have done it, you will have to walk back to the right, climb up a third ladder, walk to the right, climb up a fourth ladder, walk to the left, climb up a fifth ladder, walk to the right until you come to a broken elevator (which is indicated by the text "THIS LIFT APPEARS TO BE JAMMED." scrolling past at the top of the screen), then use the hammer to repair it. You shall then have to drop the hammer, retrace your steps back down to where you dropped that torch (while once again watching for falling stalactites), pick that torch back up again and retrace your steps back up to the now-repaired elevator (indicated by it going up, coming back down again, then going back up again, with "Brains" in it); once it has reached its highest point, you'll have to walk to the right until you come to a broken water pump (which is indicated by the text "THIS LOOKS LIKE THE WATER PUMP." scrolling past at the top of the screen) and use the spanner to repair it. You now have to drop the spanner and retrace your path back to the now-repaired elevator (which will go back down again with "Brains" in it but stop on the floor that has the plunger you may have seen on the way up) - and you will now have to walk to the right and pick up the plunger (but the elevator shall continue going back down again, trapping "Brains" until it comes back up again). Once the elevator comes back up again, you will have to walk back to the left into it; once it has reached its highest point again, you'll have to walk back to the right, climb up a sixth ladder, walk to the left, climb up one of two more ladders, walk to the right, climb up a ninth ladder, walk to the left, climb up a tenth ladder, walk to the left, climb down an eleventh ladder, walk to the left and drop the plunger. You'll now have to retrace your steps back down to the bottom of the seventh or eighth ladder, walk to the right and pick up the fuse wire you may have seen on the way up - and once you have done so, you will have to retrace your steps back to where you dropped the plunger, drop the torch and pick up that plunger again. You will now have to walk back to the left until you come to three sticks of dynamite embedded in a rock (indicated by the text "THERE IS UNDETONATED DYNAMITE IN THESE ROCKS." scrolling past at the top of the screen), walk back to the right, walk back to the left (that dynamite will have exploded), drop the plunger again and drop the fuse wire; once you have done it, you will have to walk to the left, climb down a twelfth ladder, and walk to the left until you come to the trapped miners. However, the mission is only half-complete - and you'll have to switch to Alan in order to complete the other half.
Once the screen has cut to Alan at the top of the map, you will have to start walking to the right, climb down a thirteenth ladder, walk to the right, climb down a fourteenth ladder, walk to the right, drop the grease can, and pick up a fifteenth ladder; once you've done so, you will have to walk to the right, drop the fifteenth ladder down a hole in the ground, walk back to the left and pick up the grease can again - and once you've done so, you will have to walk back to the right (that hole will have been filled in), climb down a sixteenth ladder, walk to the right, climb down a seventeenth ladder, walk to the right, climb down an eighteenth ladder, walk to the right, climb down a nineteenth ladder, walk to the left, climb down twentieth ladder, walk to the left, climb down a twenty-first ladder, walk to the left until you come to a coal-mining cart (indicated by the text "THESE WHEELS SEEM VERY STIFF ON THIS CART." scrolling past at the top of the screen), and use the grease can to oil it (indicated by Alan pushing it to the left, slowly at first, but getting faster until it is literally flying along!) - and once it falls into another hole in the ground, you'll have to walk back to the right, drop the grease can again and pick up a pneumatic drill. You will then have to walk back to the left (while yet again watching out for falling stalactites) until you come to another elevator (which will take Alan down to the bottom of its shaft once he has walked into it); once it has reached the bottom of its shaft you shall have to walk to the right, climb down a twenty-second ladder, drop the lamp, then pick up a compressor cable. You'll then have to climb back up that twenty-second ladder, walk to the right (while for a fifth and final time watching out for falling stalactites) until you come to a compressor and use its cable to connect the two halves of it together - and once you've done so you must use the pneumatic drill to drill through a door. You then have to walk to the right until you come to the trapped miners; once you have done it, you will have to switch back to "Brains" (indicated by the text "B-B-BRAINS HERE VIRGIL - S-SEND THE GRAB DOWN PLEASE AND I-I-I'LL HEAD BACK TO THE MOLE..." scrolling past at the top of the screen, for it refers to his stutter from the show, followed by the text "F.A.B BRAINS, IT'S ON ITS WAY.", as Virgil sends the grab down, and lifts the trapped miners up off the screen's top). You shall then have to retrace your steps back to your starting point - and once you have done so, the text "WELL DONE! YOU HAVE COMPLETED THIS MISSION. THE PASSWORD FOR THE NEXT MISSION IS 'RECOVERY'. RESET THE COMPUTER, LOAD THE SUBMARINE RESCUE MISSION AND TYPE IN THE PASSWORD WHEN REQUESTED TO." will scroll past at the top of the screen, and repeat until you reset it.