by Chris Babu
All the blades varied in size and shape, with some molded like the blade of a knife, and others more like an axe. Some sported clean edges and some were serrated, but all blades were sharp on both sides. They looked menacing.
They all swung back and forth at different times and varying speeds, like pendulums. For nearly thirty yards in front of them, this hellzone of heavy blades swung violently, like a malignant playground swing set, creating a battlefield of glistening steel, whirring wind, and the sound of shrieking metal.
The Bureau had narrowed the soaring chamber that housed this monstrosity. When the blades reached the peak of their swing, they just grazed the walls. Those walls were lined with metal spikes that jutted out several feet, and razor-covered barbed wire.
The pledges stood in silence, mesmerized by the powerful blades, hypnotized by their rhythmic repetition. Catrice wrapped her arm around Drayden’s.
The simple gesture snapped Drayden out of his trance. He needed to get Catrice through. The Bureau had constructed a challenge, not an execution chamber. He could defeat it. If they failed attempting it, death would be swift and brutal. Not attempting it would mean exile.
Drayden surveyed the area in front of the blades, yet found no table or note. This challenge was obvious: Reach the other side of the platform by navigating through the gauntlet of swinging blades.
He imagined the Watchers studying them right now, recording their reactions to the horrific scene. He looked up to where he figured the cameras were hidden. “See the blade, but don’t be swayed, right? How about that?” He shook his head. “Let’s do this.”
Drayden jogged down the platform and stopped before the path of the first blade. He inspected it.
As it whizzed by, the wind it generated blew dust in his eyes and whipped his shirt into a flutter. The powerful blade itself stretched five feet long and two feet tall at its widest point. Just standing near it evoked terror. Forget killing a person. One of those blades could slice a bus in half. It roared back down in the other direction.
A clock indicated the time remaining: 00:35:08, 00:35:07…
“How are we supposed to get across?” Charlie asked, perplexed.
Drayden strutted the width of the platform. He eyeballed all the swinging blades down the station, searching for any sign of a way through.
“Catrice!” he shouted. “Can you join me?”
She hurried over.
He tugged on his left ear. “This problem has a solution, just like the brainteasers. There’s a way to do this. I don’t know how yet. We need to look for clues. You see those spikes on the walls and the barbed wire? I think that’s so we can’t scoot along the wall. We need to understand this. Watch the blades. It seems like a chaotic random mess, but it probably isn’t. There has to be some pattern, something we can exploit.”
“Got it,” Catrice said. She hustled back to the beginning of the station to view the blades from afar.
Standing in front of the blades peering through the whole gauntlet, it looked like twenty or so equally-spaced blades in a row. Drayden scurried over to the far-left wall of the station. He viewed the series of blades from a diagonal angle, searching for anything unusual. Then he found it.
A space. A gap, after the first three blades. Not deep, about four feet. It provided enough room to stand and avoid getting sliced by the blades on either side.
“Catrice! I got something!”
She held up her index finger at him. She knelt, holding her hands on both sides of her face to frame the view in front of her. She ran over, grinning. “Me too! It’s not random. There’s a pattern. I studied the first ten blades. They move the same way every time, and they move in bunches. If we can nail the pattern, the timing, we can figure out when to go.”
“Nicely done. If it repeats, we can form a plan. Look at this!” Drayden took her hand and led her to the far wall. “You see that?” He pointed. “There’s a space to stand, a gap, behind the third blade. We only have to get the timing on the first three, decide exactly when to go, and we can stop there. If we had to memorize the timing on every blade before we started…that would be impossible. We’d screw up at some point.”
“What do we do after the first three?”
“Hopefully the rest of the blades are sectioned off too,” Drayden said. “We’ll have to take this sideways angle each time in those gaps to see where the next gap is. Then lock down the timing on that section. But…” He rubbed his chin.
“What is it?” Catrice asked.
“The safest lane is down the middle, right? The tunnel’s narrow. If we stand five across, the people on the ends have a lot less time to get through because they have to go last after the blade passes them, and it will reach them first on the way back down. We should probably split up into groups.”
“Fine, but I’m going with you.”
He nodded, touching her cheek. “We need to hurry. Let’s fill everyone in.” He and Catrice rejoined the other pledges in the center of the platform.
Drayden explained about the gaps and the blade patterns. “I think we can only be two or three people wide, max. This is how it’s going to work. I’ll go in the middle, with Catrice and Sidney by my side.” If he could have two people beside him, choosing Catrice and Sidney was an obvious decision. “We’ll pass the first section and stop in the gap.” He addressed Charlie directly. “Then I’ll turn back and tell you guys exactly when to go. We’ll keep going that way, through each section, assuming there are additional sections.”
Alex shook his head. “Fat chance, wetchop. If we don’t make it through, it gives you a better shot of being chosen for the Palace. You’d only have to beat out two people instead of four. I don’t think so. We’re all going in a group.”
“No we’re not,” Drayden said, getting in Alex’s face. “If we do it this way, we’ll all make it. If we go five across, we might all die. Alex, I’m not going to shaft you and Charlie. At this point, we’re all in this together. We need to worry about finishing the Initiation at all, not about who’s getting picked for the Palace. And we need Charlie, at least, to survive the next two challenges. I’ll tell you exactly when to go, as if you were beside me.”
“It’s cool, Alex,” Charlie said. “We’ll make it. You think one of those blades could cut you? Who’s tougher than you, bro? Blade’d probably bounce right off.”
Alex sulked. “Fine.”
“What about our backpacks?” Sidney asked. “Won’t they get in the way?”
She made a valid point. Fractions of seconds and inches mattered. If a blade caught your backpack, it would knock you over, and then you were screwed. “I don’t know,” he said. “We could leave them. There’s only thirty-five minutes left in the Initiation. Besides the flashlights, and I guess the pain pills, we don’t need this stuff anymore.”
Catrice pulled a piece of paper and a pencil out of hers and handed it to Drayden. “Can you put these in your pocket? In case we need it for a brainteaser.” She rubbed her hands on her leggings. “No pockets.”
Drayden stuffed them in his pockets, along with his last pill.
Charlie waved his mechanical pencil in the air, a big grin on his face. “I’m taking this baby. Could probably trade it for a few bucks. Or an egg.”
Alex flicked his ear. “The lady said we wouldn’t get to keep it, dummy.”
“Knock it off, you guys,” Drayden said. “Everyone have some water and get your flashlight. Charlie, Alex, stuff your pain pills and some antiseptic wipes in your pockets for everybody to share.”
Drayden chugged his water and studied the path of the first blades.
In terms of timing, the first three swung closely together, passing one right after another, about a second apart. The first one passed at knee level; the second passed at waist level, about a foot beyond it; the third passed at ankle level, another foot beyond that.
A foot between their trajectories wasn’t enough space to stand between them without risking death. They needed to make it across in one shot. When the third finally cleared center, the first was beginning its descent back down. They would have to bolt as the third blade approached the center, but they must abruptly stop in the gap to avoid plowing into the following section of blades. Definitely doable, though executing it with the gruesome consequence of failing on the line made it terrifying.
Catrice stood on Drayden’s right and Sidney on his left.
“I’m going to count the blades out loud as they cross center,” he said. “I’ll say ‘one, two, three,’ so we can all feel the timing. I’ll say ‘three’ as blade three crosses center up to the right, and we go right after that. Run as fast as you can, but you have to stop in the gap after the three blades. I’ll yell out ‘stop’ when we get there as a reminder. We probably have a second or two to reach it. Don’t think about the blades. Don’t look at them. Just focus on the gap. Everyone clear?”
“Yup,” Sidney said.
Catrice nodded, though she was shaking. “Maybe…maybe we should let the blades pass a few times, to get the rhythm.”
“Good idea.” Drayden hoped his ankle held up and didn’t roll in the dash across. He snagged Catrice’s hand. She squeezed it tight.
Charlie clapped a few times. “C’mon, guys. You got this.”
The blades flew by to the right—one, two, three, screaming through the air. They rocketed back down to the left—one, two, three. The air swirled all around them, the rods screeching on the axle. Back over to the right once more.
Drayden locked his eyes on the third blade. “Next cycle we’re going. Get ready,” he said. “Ready…”
Blade one passed. “One!” Then two. “Two!” Then three.
“Three! Go!”
He bounded across, clutching Catrice’s hand. “Stop!” he screamed.
They stopped just as the blade in the upcoming section whizzed by in front of them.
Drayden exhaled the breath he didn’t know he had been holding. His ankle pulsed with his fluttering heartbeat.
“We made it,” Catrice squeaked, cradling her cheeks in her hands.
Being inside the blade maze amplified the noise of the grinding metal and swooshing blades. The powerful winds rippled their clothes. The gap was about three or four feet deep, and stretched across the whole station widthwise, like a narrow aisle in the FDC.
“Hey, chotch!” Alex shouted from behind. “Remember us?”
Drayden whipped around. Plenty of space existed to move right or left. “You guys step to the sides a bit so they don’t run into you,” he said to Catrice and Sidney. “Get ready!” he yelled to Charlie and Alex. “I’ll count for you guys. You go after three, right after the third blade crosses the center.”
Charlie gave him a thumbs-up. He and Alex crouched as if they were about to start a race.
Remember, it’s the reverse from this side, Drayden thought. He focused on the third blade, now the closest one.
“Ready…one…two…three! Go!” he shouted, just as the third blade zipped past.
They darted across. Too hastily. Alex tried to stop in the gap, only to find he couldn’t fight his momentum. He teetered forward, in the path of the next blade.
Drayden grabbed him by the neckline of his shirt and yanked him back.
The blade zoomed past Alex’s stomach, missing it by inches. Silent but panting, his wild eyes bulged.
“You’re welcome,” Drayden said.
Catrice and Sidney returned to the center. Drayden carefully hurried over to the left side to view the upcoming blades from the sideways angle. As he’d suspected, the remaining blades were grouped into sections, with gaps between them. This challenge was about to intensify, though.
Five blades flew in the subsequent section, followed by another gap in which to stand. Three swung in the same direction, one right after another, like in the first section they cleared. The last two swung in the other direction, one following the other. They flew at various heights, from ankle level up to waist.
Drayden pulled off his hat and ran his hands through his hair. Sweat formed around the edges. No clear path existed through at any given time. While one, two, and three peaked, four and five crossed center. How would they pass through?
“Catrice!”
She tiptoed over, her hair blowing wildly in the blustery wind. Charlie followed her.
Drayden wasn’t sure why Charlie came along, but perhaps he could figure it out. Charlie was gifted at all things physical.
“Hey,” Drayden said, “can you guys check out this next section of blades? The first three blades are like the section we just finished. The Bureau added two more blades, basically blocking our path through. At no time is there a clear path, it’s always blocked. When those last two clear, the first three get in the way.”
Both studied the blades. Charlie knelt and dropped his head until his cheek touched the floor. “Can we slide underneath?”
“Great thinking, Charlie,” Drayden said. “I believe the Bureau thought of that though. That third blade grazes the floor, and the last one is uncomfortably low.”
Catrice picked at her fingernails. “I see a way, but…”
Drayden’s eyes widened. “But what?”
She exhaled. “We need to pause in the middle. In the path of blade three.” She pointed at the blades as she spoke. “We let one, two, and three pass up to the right. Then we run out into blade three’s path and wait until blade four and five have crossed to the right. Blade five is actually ahead of blade four, so we have to wait for them both to pass. We go before blade three slices us coming back down. It’ll be close.” She cringed.
Oh God.
Charlie stood. “Jeez.”
Drayden blew out a long, slow breath. “Well done, Catrice. Let’s fill in Sid and Alex.” He walked back to the center of the chamber in the aisle, with Catrice and Charlie in tow, to where Alex and Sidney were chatting.
Was Alex…smiling?
“So yeah,” Alex said to Sidney, “I’d like to toss my brother Chad right into those blades.”
Sidney looked shocked. “That’s nuts.”
“Listen up,” Drayden said, and explained the strategy to them. “Don’t look up at that third blade. You don’t want to freeze watching it coming toward you. We’ll only have a fraction of a second to clear it. We’ll go in groups again. Catrice, Sid, let’s get ready.”
Drayden took Catrice’s hand, interlocking her fingers with his.
“On my mark,” he said. “I’ll count off the first three blades again, and we go after I say ‘three.’ I’m going to yell ‘stop’ when we pause, and ‘go’ when we start again. Ready…”
The first blade, a four-foot-long smooth blade curved like a sickle, flew by at waist level to the right.
“One!” The second blade blew by. “Two!” The third blade reached the center heading right.
“Three! Go!”
They ran a few steps.
“Stop!”
Sidney screamed. She turned and jumped back to the gap where Charlie and Alex waited.
“Sid!” Drayden yelled. He released Catrice’s hand and stepped back, confused. He didn’t know what to do.
He was standing right in the path of blade two, now rocketing back down toward him.
Drayden looked up at it. He froze.
It would slice him in half in a microsecond. Blade one was ahead of it, just crossing center, blocking his path back.
“Drayden!” Catrice shrieked.
He dove back toward the gap, as low as he could, attempting to slide beneath blade one.
It sliced the back of his shirt as he tumbled out. Charlie caught him before he rolled into the previous set of blades.
Drayden whipped his head back. “Catrice!�
��
She’d waited for blades five and four to cross and dashed across a millisecond before blade three would have sliced her. Exactly as planned.
“I’m across!” Catrice shouted, safely in the next gap.
Drayden’s heart pounded in his ears. Holy shkat. Another fraction of a second or an inch higher, and he’d be in two pieces. He shuddered.
Sidney pulled him up and hugged him. “I’m sorry! Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. I panicked.”
“I’m fine.” Drayden wasn’t though, he was still shaking. He took a slow breath to regain his composure. “You ready to try again?”
“Yeah,” she whimpered.
He grabbed Sidney’s hand and they positioned themselves in the center again. Drayden monitored blade three.
It screeched by to the right, up to its peak, and then blew again to the left.
“Ready…one…two…”
Blade three crossed center heading right.
“Three! Go!”
Hand in hand, they sprinted into its path after it shot past, up to the right.
“Stop!”
Blade five screamed by heading right, blade four closely behind it.
Drayden avoided looking at blade three, but unfortunately his peripheral vision was strong enough. It screamed toward them from the right. “Go!”
He launched, yanking Sidney. The wind from the third blade rippled his pants as it shrieked left behind them. They made it.
Drayden closed his eyes, breathing heavy. He bent over.
“I’m sorry, Catrice,” Sidney said. “I screwed up and we left you all alone. I panicked. I just…I forgot what to do.”
Catrice touched Sidney’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. That was scary. But we all made it.”
“Great job, by the way,” Sidney said. “You did it perfectly.”
“Oh, hey!” Alex yelled. “I’m sorry to interrupt social hour over there. Can we get a little help?”
“Maybe we should leave them behind,” Drayden grumbled under his breath. “You make it such a pleasure, Alex!” he shouted back.