by Scott Meyer
Roy and Martin both made involuntary sounds. Roy’s was one of shock and amazement, Martin’s, delight, and more than a little pride. While the remaining soldiers rounded the corner and froze in horror at what remained of their three cohorts, Gwen and Brit fell back to Martin and Roy’s position, emitting squeaky little sounds of surprise and disgust as they stepped around the body parts of the fallen.
“Well done!” Martin said.
Gwen said, “It wasn’t that hard. The swords don’t feel any resistance when you stab them, and they die after one hit.”
Martin and Roy had recovered enough to have gotten their swords out. Brit and Gwen flanked them so that they presented a unified, sword-wielding front. The five remaining soldiers, who were still standing in single file, looked up from their fallen comrades. The soldier in front drew his sword, bent at the knees, stood sideways, and waved his sword menacingly. The four soldiers behind him did the same. They had the same posture and made the same motions at the same speed. The only thing that kept it from looking like a choreographed dance routine was that they all started the animation at slightly different times, so their sword waving was slightly out of sync.
The front soldier let out a triumphant “Ha-ha!” and lunged forward. His sword met Martin’s, and the two froze there for a moment, locked in honorable combat, before both Brit and Roy stabbed the soldier with their swords. The soldier fell back, next to the remains of his fallen fellows, who were already beginning to fade and disappear, leaving their mostly unused weapons behind.
The next soldier in line said “Ha-ha!” and lunged for Martin, who parried his thrust and held him there while Roy stabbed him.
Brit said, “Rotate.” Since they all (even Roy) had played volleyball, they knew instinctively to move around in a circle to allow everyone to see an equal amount of action and get an equal amount of rest. They had all taken a step just in time for the next soldier to yell “Ha-ha!” and lunge at Brit, who had taken over Martin’s position. Gwen stabbed him, and as she withdrew her blade, Martin shoved him back onto the fading pile.
By the time the eighth soldier attacked, they had the process fairly fine-tuned.
They looked at the pile of carnage for a moment and briefly discussed any way they could improve the system. Then Martin said, “I’d better go get the next row headed this way. We have to get through all of them before this row regenerates twofold.”
About an hour later, four very tired adventurers pushed open the doors of Castle Cragganmore. Their arms felt like spaghetti, and they were drenched with sweat, but they were alive, and the soldiers who had stood in their way were not.
They opened the doors wide enough to walk through, but the doors themselves were so large that they appeared to have only opened a crack. A thin shaft of daylight sliced through the darkness, paradoxically making it harder to see what was in the room, not easier. They pushed the doors closed again behind them, just in case the soldiers respawned in their original positions, rather than, like the wolves, where they’d been killed.
Once the doors were closed, their eyes could adjust to the light that filtered in through the stained-glass windows. There were large decorative torches on every wall, but as it was still day, they were not lit. There was more than enough light to see by; it just did not seem like it at first because everything visible was dark. Dark stone floors supporting dark stone walls beneath a dark stone ceiling, all illuminated by dark stained-glass windows.
The room was large and circular, with two symmetrical staircases leading to a nonsensically placed terrace at the back of the room. Beneath the terrace, there was a stone carving of what appeared to be a circular aperture, flanked by two large decorative mirrors. In the middle of the floor, two raised platforms held two levers.
Brit shook her head and said, “Look at this place.”
Martin said, “I know!”
Brit smirked at him before sighing. “I’ve never understood why men think all you have to do to make something cool is to make it big and paint it black.”
Martin said, “I’ve never understood why women think it’s more complicated than that.” They shared a small chuckle, then turned their attention to Roy, who was standing on one of the two small platforms in the middle of the room, pushing on the lever that seemed to be the platform’s reason for existing.
“Hey, Martin,” Roy said, “why don’t you apply a little elbow grease to that other lever? Let’s see if we can make something happen.”
Brit silently walked toward the second lever.
Roy said, “I said—”
“My elbows are just as greasy as his,” Brit said.
She stepped up onto the platform and grasped the lever with both hands.
Roy said, “On three?”
Brit replied, “That works.”
Roy counted, and as he said “three,” they both easily pushed their levers forward. The room filled with the sound of giant heavy stones sliding against each other as the stone aperture opened.
Brit and Roy made eye contact, and in unison started to release their levers, which instantly caused the portal to close. They quickly pushed their levers forward again, and the portal reopened.
Brit said, “Okay, I guess we’re staying here. Gwen, Martin, you’re up. I know you two haven’t really been alone for a long time, but please, don’t spend too much time in there making out.”
Gwen and Martin approached the threshold and saw a stone staircase and a seemingly infinite row of torches stretching off into the distance. After a quick promise to not waste too much time, they started down the stairs.
After they’d gone far enough that they were sure they wouldn’t be overheard, Gwen said, “We should try to get back to them as quickly as we can. Poor Brit. She can’t be happy stuck up there with Roy.”
Martin said, “Yeah, I don’t think it’s a picnic for Roy either.”
“I thought you liked Brit.”
“I do. I like her a lot, and I actually think Roy thinks quite a bit of her, but just shows it badly.”
Gwen said, “He treats her like a weakling and bosses her around.”
Martin smiled and said, “Like I said, badly.”
“That’s not badly,” Gwen said. “That’s oppositely, if that’s even a word.”
Martin attempted to let the topic drop. He was not successful.
After a few steps, Gwen said, “Seriously, Martin, you’re saying that he treats Brit and me like idiots because he likes us?”
“That isn’t quite what I was saying,” Martin said, “but yes. He thinks he’s being strong and protective. If he didn’t think you both deserved protection and strength, he wouldn’t bother.”
“So he thinks he should treat us like precious porcelain figurines.”
Martin shrugged. “I think he’d say he’s trying to treat you like ladies.”
Gwen looked at Martin in disbelief. “Martin, you agree with him, don’t you?”
Martin stopped walking and turned to face Gwen. “Look, that’s not a fair question, and you know it.”
“Why not?” Gwen asked.
“Because you’re asking for a yes-or-no answer to a multiple-choice question.”
Gwen said, “This isn’t the SAT, Martin.”
Martin said, “I know. I did well on my SAT.”
Gwen didn’t laugh, or even smile, but she did noticeably relax, which was enough encouragement for Martin to continue.
“Look,” he said, “you and I are from 2012. Brit’s from the 1990s. Roy was born in something like 1930. Think about that for a minute.”
Gwen said, “That doesn’t justify his attitude.”
“No,” Martin said, “but it explains it. Gwen, I look at you and Brit and I see modern women. He looks at you and he sees creatures from the friggin’ future. A future he can barely imagine. He came here from the seventies. Do you
know how awful things were back then? The women Roy’s friends would have considered crazy, hardcore feminists were demanding jobs. That’s it. Jobs that weren’t nursing, sewing, or food service. They weren’t even demanding equal pay yet, because they wanted to be realistic.”
Martin continued down the stairs. Gwen followed.
“So what are you telling me?” Gwen asked. “Brit and I should take his behavior as a compliment? Should we thank him for belittling us?”
“Not at all,” Martin said. “I think you both have played things about right. What’s that called when psychologists electrocute you when you do something wrong? Abhorrent conditioning, I think? Anyway, he won’t learn that he’s doing the wrong thing unless you two show him that he is, so I say keep up the good work. I’d just appreciate it if you try not to hate him. He’s a grumpy old cuss, but he’s not a bad guy. It’s not that he doesn’t respect you. He just respects you wrong.”
At last, they reached the bottom of the stairs, and found themselves in a large room. The center of the room was a statue of a six-armed warrior. In his six hands he brandished six knives, the blades of which were polished to a mirror finish. On the far wall there was an intricately carved door that was covered with strange symbols. On each side of the door there were three stone cylinders, about the height of a man, which also held carved hieroglyphics, though much larger than the ones on the doors. In front of both sets of cylinders there was a rail holding a small mirror. Along the sides of the room, six braziers held six roaring fires, the light from which was focused by large lenses toward the statue in the middle of the room.
Gwen and Martin surveyed the scene silently for a moment; then Gwen said, “Puzzle.”
“Obviously,” Martin replied.
“I’ll take the left side,” Gwen said. “You take the right.”
Martin said, “Cool,” and they went about their work.
The statue stood in an exaggerated squat that looked fearsome and allowed people of normal human height to use its legs as a place to stand. Gwen and Martin climbed up on the statue’s bent knees and started pulling on the arms, each of which were attached to the torso via a swivel joint at the shoulder. Each arm easily swung into position with a satisfying click, and the light from one of the braziers, focused by the lenses, reflected off the dagger blades to illuminate one of the symbols on the door. In short order, they had all six arms in position and six glyphs highlighted. They moved on to the cylinders, which turned smoothly but slowly. Martin spun the columns until the three symbols displayed on their fronts matched the three illuminated on the door closest to him. He turned to check on Gwen’s progress and found her smirking at him with her arms crossed.
“You done?” he asked.
“Yup,” she answered.
“Hmm,” Martin said. “Then why isn’t the door opening?” He pushed and pulled on the door. It didn’t move.
“Are you done with your side?” Gwen asked.
Martin said, “Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Martin said, “I think.” He looked at the cylinders. The markings matched. He thought for a moment, casting his eyes around the room.
“The mirror,” Martin moaned. “I totally forgot about the mirror.”
Martin stood between the cylinders and the mirror, then swung the mirror around so he was looking at the cylinders, and of course, when looked at this way the symbols were backward and in the wrong order. He spun the first cylinder until he found a glyph that was the reversed version of the symbol on the last cylinder. Gwen smiled, approvingly.
As he arranged the other two cylinders, Martin said, “I gotta admit, these puzzles are a lot more tiring when you’re actually physically doing them, instead of sitting on your couch with a controller, watching Lara Croft do the work.”
“Tomb Raider, huh?” Gwen said. “I preferred Uncharted.”
“Well, I’m a dude, and Lara Croft is fun to look at.”
“I’m a chick, and I feel the same way about Nathan Drake.”
Martin shrugged and continued spinning the cylinders.
“And Victor Sullivan,” Gwen continued.
Martin turned to face her, grinning. “Really? The old guy?”
“Yeah, why not? Age differences like that don’t always bother women. Look at Phillip and Brit.”
Martin said, “Brit’s older than Phillip.”
“Mentally,” Gwen said. “Physically, she’s much younger.”
Martin said, “Age differences like that don’t always bother men. Almost never, in fact.”
Martin slid the last glyph into place, and the doors swung open on their own.
Gwen and Martin crept into the dark passage beyond the door. The only sound was the rustling of their own clothing. They could see a well-lit room waited at the end of the hall, but there was no source of light between there and where they were.
As they approached the light, their view of the room grew wider. They saw a fortune in gold and other assorted loot, piled and heaped in such large amounts that it couldn’t help but look terribly fake. In the midst of the gold there was a throne. The arms of the throne and its backrest, seat cushion, and the floor around it were stained with blood, in such large amounts of it that it couldn’t help but look terribly real.
Across from the throne there was a table, and on that table there was a familiar-looking ornate metal birdcage. Inside the birdcage there was an ornate metal bird, just like the one back at the mine, except this one was not moving, seemingly frozen in mid-flutter. It hung motionless in the air, beak open, wings outstretched.
On the floor just behind the table, there was the body of a portly man in a filthy jester costume, lying motionless, arms akimbo, and facedown on the floor with his head turned away. There was no sign of blood, gore, or decomposition of any kind, and he was clearly not a real person, but that only made the sight of him more disturbing.
Anyone involved in a healthy long-term romantic relationship can tell when their partner wants to leave a place. Usually the place in question is some place the other person does not want to leave: a party, a Broadway musical, or a sports bar with scantily clad waitresses. In this case, both Martin and Gwen were able to tell that neither of them felt like hanging around, so they simply walked in, grabbed the cage, and walked out again without ever having to discuss it.
Brit shifted her weight, adjusting her stance so that the lever’s handle dug into a different part of her anatomy. Using her body weight to hold the door open didn’t require a lot of strength, but it still had its cost. Early on she had been forced to make a choice. She could have a single, smallish bruise that went clear to the bone, or she could spread the damage around and end up with a less painful bruise that had more surface area.
Once she was confident with her new position, she turned her attention back to the conversation at hand.
“So,” she asked, “about the SR-71, I understand that the friction of the speeds it flew caused so much expansion that the skin panels had to be made smaller than usual, and that at room temperature the whole plane had big honking panel gaps.”
“Yup. If you looked too closely, it looked like we’d had the thing built by British Leyland.” Roy was sitting on the floor, leaning back on his lever as if it were a backrest. “That’s a car company that makes crummy cars.”
“Yeah, I know,” Brit said. “They did, anyway. They’re long gone in my time.”
“I’m not surprised. How’s a young lady like you know about all this guy stuff?”
Brit chose to let the “young lady” bit slide, and instead focus on how she knew about “all this guy stuff.”
“Roy,” she said, “I love machines and engineering and problem solving. Before I found the file, I was going to be an architect. I know things.”
Roy scoffed. “Well, now, I don’t know what all you know, but I’ll tell
you something I know. Saying you were going to be something isn’t the same as being that thing.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Brit asked, despite the fact that she knew exactly what it was supposed to mean.
“Just that reading about building things isn’t the same as actually building things, that’s all,” Roy explained.
Brit said, “I built a city. An entire city. Atlantis. You’ve been there.”
Roy said, “Yeah, about that. I’ve always been hazy on how that whole thing happened. When did you build Atlantis?”
Brit said, “About forty years from now.”
Roy waved his hand dismissively. “Yeah, great, I know. We’re all time travelers, great. What I’m asking is, to you, from your point of view, when did you build the city?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Brit explained. “From my point of view the city will be built thirty-eight years from now.”
Roy smiled. “Oh, so what you’re saying is that you didn’t build Atlantis. Brit the Elder did.”
Brit said, “She’s me!”
Roy said, “Not yet she isn’t.”
Brit said, “Besides, the city is based on my plans and ideas.”
Roy said, “Ideas don’t impress me as much as execution. Sorry, kid, but where I come from we judge people by what they’ve done, not what they say they’ll do.”
“I’m not telling you what I will do,” Brit said. “I’m telling you what I will have done.”
Roy mulled this over for a moment, then said, “Yeah, well, I don’t know what to think of that.”
Brit admitted, “Neither do I, most days.”
The conversation might have continued, but they were distracted by the sound of footsteps echoing up the staircase behind them. Roy and Brit glanced at each other, silently confirming that they would enact the plan they had hatched shortly after they’d stopped actively pushing on the levers and had started leaning on them. Roy smiled, Brit nodded, and they both started arranging themselves as discussed.