The night before the Death Race 
across the Wastelands is set to begin,

your uncle, 
the great inventor Slate Kanoli,

got kidnapped 
by the ruthless No-Side gang.

The only way to get him back 
is to race his Coil Runner

against the gang yourself.

Win and they’ll give back your uncle.

Lose and you’ll forfeit the Coil Runner 
and all his other creations.

As the grueling race gets underway,

you find yourself falling further 
and further behind.

Your only chance is to take a shortcut 
your uncle told you about––

the Flux Ravine gambit.

Fortunately, the Coil Runner comes 
equipped with emergency turbo thrusters.

Unfortunately, your uncle 
was a notorious tinkerer,

and the system still had some kinks 
to work out.

Just minor things 
like the ignition exploding,

the reactor leaking, 
or the oxygen levels depleting—

any of which would end 
your racing career immediately.

Before his kidnapping,

Uncle Slate determined 
that each of these critical failures

was the ultimate result 
of a chain reaction

originating in the thrusters.

He was also certain that while one factor
could trigger two different effects,

and two factors could each independently
lead to the same effect,

no effect is caused by two factors 
in conjunction.

However, Uncle Slate 
never got around to pinpointing

which thruster was responsible 
for which error.

All you have 
are the notes from his test runs:

1. When thrusters B and C are on, 
the Fuel gauge glows.

2.	When thrusters A, B, and D are on,

the Fuel gauge glows 
and the Helium tank rattles.

3.	When thrusters C, D, and E are on,

the Fuel gauge glows 
and the Gravitometer spins.

4.	When thrusters A, D, and E are on,

the Gravitometer spins 
and the Helium tank rattles.

5.	Shortly after the Helium tank rattles 
and the Gravitometer spins,

the Ignition explodes 
and the Oxygen levels deplete.

6.	Shortly after the Fuel gauge glows 
and the Gravitometer spins,

the Reactor leaks.

You need to use 
as many thrusters as possible

to give yourself the best chance 
at clearing the gap,

without triggering any of the three 
catastrophic failures.

Which thrusters should you activate?

Answer in 3

Answer in 2

Answer in 1

The most important thing 
to remember here

is that even if we know 
that one thing causes another,

the converse is not necessarily true.

For example, this panic switch 
shuts off the coil runner’s engine.

But the engine being off 
doesn’t necessarily mean

the panic switch was engaged—

the coil runner could be 
out of fuel, or damaged—

or turned off normally.

We can, however, 
conclude that if the engine is running,

the panic switch hasn’t been engaged.

With that in mind, one way we can start 
is to work backwards

from the three defects that could 
knock you out of the race.

So let’s look at Slate’s last two notes,

since they give direct information 
about those.

The Gravitometer spins in both cases, 
but the results are different.

That means the spinning Gravitometer

can’t be the cause 
of any particular malfunction.

If it were, the same thing would happen 
each time.

So we can conclude that a glowing 
Fuel gauge makes the reactor leak,

while a rattling Helium tank 
makes the Ignition explode

and depletes the Oxygen levels.

Once we know which two errors 
we need to avoid,

we can make a table 
and use the logic of cause and effect

to see which thrusters trigger them.

Since the Helium tank is fine 
during the first test run

when thrusters B and C are active,

we can assume neither makes it rattle.

And from the third run 
we know that D and E don’t either.

That leaves thruster A,

which was indeed used 
in the second and fourth test runs

where the Helium tank rattled.

Now what causes the glowing Fuel gauge?

From the fourth test run we know 
it can’t be thrusters A, D, or E.

So is the culprit, B, C, 
or each of them separately?

The answer can be found 
in the second and third test runs:

the fuel tank glowed in both, 
but B was activated in one,

and C in the other.

That means the B and C thrusters each 
independently make the Fuel tank glow.

It looks like the A, B, and C 
thrusters are off limits.

Fortunately, the other two 
are just enough to clear the jump.

You rocket into first place

and the gang 
begrudgingly hands over your uncle.

He thanks you profusely, 
and decides to celebrate your victory

with a cup of tea 
from his latest contraption...