Kaiser and the provost cowered near a cord of rebar. No doubt they were wondering how things had gotten to this point. An academic experiment had somehow devolved into men with real guns and a besieging helicopter that was spitting dust and churning the air into a maelstrom.
Jenny seemed caught between two worlds. She stood a step apart from Levick and Kaiser, and a few more from the others. It was as if she realized she didn’t quite belong with either.
Tahoe and Wolfie held each other in a tight embrace, eyes wide with fear.
Kate, too, seemed like a little girl lost. Despite her lies, despite the fact she had concealed her identity, and despite the fact she had stolen the golden ticket, Chance found he didn’t care about any of it. He had developed real feelings for her.
Chance knew that he must try to save them all.
Looking down the barrel of the approaching guns, Chance felt like safety was a long way away. It certainly didn’t lie with the men with the guns and the jet-black helicopter with the blazing spotlights. But was he ready to trust in Kaiser? Sure, what he said about the need for creativity in the world appealed to him, but there was something about Kaiser that he found disingenuous. He was too polished, too slick.
The same went for Madeline Levick. She seemed self-assured and composed, and yet behind her slick veneer, Chance sensed something more malevolent. Jenny seemed to trust the provost, but Jenny hadn’t exactly been a scion of trustworthiness either. Still, he had once felt something for Jenny, the seeds of something deep and real. And despite what was blossoming between him and Kate, he could not deny that those seeds were still there.
Drake had given them only one choice. Submit.
Fighting was futile, a suicide mission. Flight was impossible. There was simply nowhere to run. Even if they somehow made it off the roof without getting killed, where would they go? Where would they run? Certainly not home, not back to their loved ones. These men would not give up. Maybe ever. Whatever they wanted with Chance and the others, they would not be easily thwarted. Chance could not endanger his father. Or Wolfie’s Pops, or Tahoe’s mother.
So where did that leave them?
An idea swept into his mind. Little more than a germ at first, but it grew quickly. Expanded. Spread and blossomed into something resembling a plan. It would be a risk, that might just imperil the very people he had sworn to protect. But, he realized with a sudden clarity, it was the only way.
Chance turned to Tahoe, Wolfie and Kate and whispered. “I have an idea.”
Chance told them only the first step of his plan, because the rest of the plan would only work if he concealed it from them.
God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another.
“Are you sure about this?” Tahoe asked.
Chance said, “Yes.”
In one fluid move, Chance turned, took one long stride toward the edge of the building and hurled himself into the mouth of the orange rubble chute. He bounced awkwardly against the hard inner shell, pinballing down the chute. A second later, three bodies crashed into the shaft above him amid a staccato burst of gunfire.
FORTY-FIVE
Chance plunged down the darkened shaft. He fell about 10 feet, careening awkwardly, unable to control his own limbs, until he somehow managed to wedge himself tight. Knees slightly bent, he pressed his legs against one side, his back against the other. A human barricade.
A body crashed into him, knocking the breath from his lungs. His knees faltered, and for a moment, their bodies slid, limbs entangled, before Chance jammed his legs tight again. Even in the darkness, he could tell it was Kate. Her head came to rest on his chest.
Tahoe was next, crashing into them a half-second later. Wolfie fell head first into the tangle, slamming his head against Kate’s knee. Despite the awkward knot of limbs and body parts, all four knew instinctively to remain utterly silent.
In close quarters, they listened with bated breath.
A voice shouted out, a man’s voice, difficult to hear over the pounding thump of the rotor blades.
“Take everyone you have and get down to the ground. Those asshole kids are probably lying in a heap at the bottom of the chute. Do not let them escape. Shoot them fucking dead if you must. They are too dangerous to be free.”
With a sudden revving of its engines, the helicopter suddenly roared off, banking down toward the ground. A billow of grit and dust shot up from the bottom of the chute, and the four coughed and gagged.
Wolfie rubbed an elbow that had bent the wrong way during his fall. “Follow my lead, you said. Jump down a 60-foot trash tunnel, you said. Sure, no problem.”
“I thought the plan was to take our chances on the ground,” Tahoe said. “We lost the element of surprise by now.”
“We need to move,” Wolfie said. “When they get to the ground and see we are not there, they’re going to figure out our little ruse pretty fast.”
“The way I see it, we need to find a way off this roof, that’s priority one. Then we need to go to the police. Those men want us dead.”
Tahoe was right. They were not safe. They would never be, not until they knew what these men were after — and the truth about the Picasso Project.
“They’re going to be waiting for us at the bottom,” Tahoe said.
“So we take our chances up top, then,” Wolfie said. “Climb back up to the roof, try to find another way down.”
“I told you I had a plan,” Chance said. “But I only shared part of it.”
If you don’t like the choices given to you, make another one. Make your own trail. Do not accept the fate someone else has written for you.
“What’s the next part?” asked Tahoe.
“It’s time we took control of our own destiny,” he said.
And then Chance let go.
All four of them plummeted down the rubble chute.
They landed inside a steel dumpster. It was filled with construction trash, hard shanks of wood and discarded bits of iron pipes, drywall and wire, and now, a mass of entangled limbs and muttered curses. Slamming into the detritus sent shockwaves of pain through each of them.
Chance, the first to hit, momentarily blacked out, roused only when three other bodies crashed on top of him. He scrambled to his knees.
“What the hecking heck,” Tahoe cursed.
A stream of light appeared over their heads. Chance looked up at the sound of someone climbing up the dumpster on the far side. An unwelcome face appeared.
“That was a really fucking stupid plan,” said Drake, just before he slammed the butt of his revolver into Chance’s forehead.
FORTY-SIX
Chance heard voices. They sounded distant, but they were at least enough to reassure him that he was still alive.
He struggled to open his eyes. His eyelids felt impossibly heavy, like they had been stitched shut. He sensed light around him, through his clenched eyes.
His head throbbed; the veins pulsed and screamed in his temples. He instinctively reached for his head, but his arms would not move. He tried his legs, but they too were immovable. Maybe he was dead, after all. Maybe the light signified something else, a different place altogether. He forced himself to relax, to release the coiled tension in his shoulder muscles. He breathed in through his nose, and out through his mouth. That helped fight the panic. He inhaled again, exhaled slowly.
He was lying on his back. That much, he knew. And whatever surface he was on was hard and cold, like steel. Chance realized with a start that the hard surface was pressed directly onto his bare skin. He struggled to process this new sensory input. Was he naked?
He quickly tested the rest of his body, and much to his relief, found he could wriggle his toes and bend his knees slightly. He could shrug his shoulders too, but still could not move his arms or legs. He probed blindly with his fingers, but they met nothing but air. He wasn’t paralyzed, but he suddenly realized something just as terrifying: His body was being restrained.
He heard the voices again. Close
r. And clearer.
“Setting the inputs now for number 2.”
“Ten minutes, just like the others. Did you check for foreign bodies?”
“Check that. No metal. No fillings. Nowhere to hide, really.”
“Restraints?”
Chance felt something at his wrists and ankles. A pressure released. But he dared not move. Not yet.
“Restraints removed.”
“Ready over here. On your mark.”
“Commence scan.”
Chance felt his body shudder. The cold surface he was on began to vibrate. Then he sensed a sliding sensation as the entire platform shifted, but trying to determine a direction only made his head swim with vertigo. The movement only lasted a moment, and was quickly replaced by a loud mechanical knocking. Whatever was making the horrible sound, it was right over his head.
Again, he tried to open his eyes, and this time he managed to crack them apart. Yet, he still could not see clearly. Something was covering his eyes. A blindfold? A bandage?
The knocking grew louder and faster, and Chance felt like the bulging veins in his temple were going to burst. He screamed, and everything went black.
Chance woke with a jolt. His eyes popped open as he sucked in a gasp of air. Bright light burned his retinas. He blinked once, twice, his eyes adjusting to the sudden illumination. Vision swam into focus.
He was staring up at a ceiling, pipes and ductwork exposed. He could hear the faint hum of fluorescent light bulbs, buzzing like a swarm of bees. One of the overhead lights flickered ominously. Turning his head sent a flare of pain down his neck, but gave him a view of the rest of the room.
It looked like some kind of stripped-down hospital room. Beside him, just a few feet away, was a second bed. Behind the bed was a small monitor on a wheeled rack and an IV pole. A clear bag filled with a milky fluid hung from the pole, dripping into a long clear tube. The tube snaked to the bed, where it disappeared under a white sheet.
There was a body on the bed, covered by the sheet. A white gauze bandage had been taped across its face His first thought was that the person was dead, covered as it was, like in a morgue. But then he saw the IV tube. You don’t pump liquid into a dead person.
He lifted his head a few inches, as far as he could. There were four beds in all, lined neatly against the wall. Four bodies. He realized something else too. All of the bodies were bound at the wrists and the ankles, held fast to the table by thick leather straps. He felt the straps on his own limbs. He struggled to move, but the leather cuffs held him tightly.
Opposite the beds was a bare wall, and a door, painted black. A small white video camera was mounted in the corner, above a green metal storage locker. On the top of the camera, a small green light blinked.
What was this place? He suddenly remembered coming to earlier. Or had that been a dream? How long had he been out? The last thing he remembered was tumbling down the rubble chute, right into the waiting clutches of Drake and his henchmen. After that, nothing.
“Hey,” he whisper-called toward the body closest to him. Chance waited for a response. Hearing nothing, he raised his voice. “Hey!”
“I hear you,” came a familiar voice. “Just give me a minute. It feels like my head is on fire.”
It was Kate. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“I can’t move,” she said.
“You’re strapped down,” Chance said as calmly as he could. “And your face is covered with some kind of bandage.”
“Where are we?”
“I don’t know.”
“This was your plan?”
The plan. Chance remembered that he had only told them the first part — escape down the rubble chute. He had not shared the second, and more crucial part: Allow yourself to be captured. The plan was based on several assumptions that even Chance conceded were dubious.
First, that Drake and his men really didn’t want to kill them. If they had wanted them dead, they would’ve fired at first sight. They didn’t. They wanted them alive, for the moment at least.
Second, he wanted to see where they would take them. The Brain and Behavior Institute in D.C.? Somewhere else? Wherever that was would be one step closer to learning the truth.
The third part of his plan was simple: escape. He had great faith in the ability of their little band to escape any situation. They had proven that.
He had not, however, counted on being strapped down in an apocalyptic medical chamber.
He quickly relayed all of this to Kate.
“Your plan stinks,” she said.
“There were two women earlier,” Chance said. “I heard them. I think they were conducting some kind of test on me. If they come back, lie there as still as you can with your eyes closed. Act like you’re still out of it. Let’s see what we can find out about this place. We need more information.”
Just then, the door opened. Chance caught only a fleeting glimpse of two women dressed in pale green scrubs. One of them carried a clipboard. He shut his eyes.
“Next up, fMRI scans. Who’s first?”
“Let’s do ’em in order, left to right. So, Subject 1.”
“Oh look, this one’s lost his bandage.”
Chance felt one of the women draw close, and then felt the suffocating sensation of a gauze bandage being fastened over his face, around his head. He fought the sudden claustrophobia, but at least the wrapping allowed him to open his eyes. He could just make out the two forms.
“Here we go then, Subject 2. One of the girls. You got that end? Okay, let’s go.”
Chance squinted as the two women grasped either end of the gurney that was farthest away. They paused at the door.
“What is your code, Viola?”
“Stop. You know we’re not supposed to share our codes. Use yours.”
“I forgot to reset mine, and they locked me out of the system. Come on, I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” The women laughed.
“No way, but I will give you a hint. My code has something to do with my name.”
“Your code is ‘bitch? then?” More laughter.
“Lunch on me if you can figure it out. No peeking now!”
Chance heard four sequential beeps, and the door hissed open. The two women shoved the gurney through the door, and it clicked shut behind them.
“So we learned one thing,” Chance said. “There’s a keypad beside the door. It requires a code to get in or out.”
“What just happened?”
“They’re running their tests,” Chance explained. “There are four of us in here. There were, at least before they just took that one out. I assume that Wolfie and Tahoe are on the other beds. Those women just took one of them away. Tahoe, I think.”
“How many tests?”
“I don’t know. I only remember one, but I could’ve been unconscious for others.”
“I need to get these things off of my wrists.” He heard Kate struggle against her restraints.
“It’s no use,” he said. “I already tried.”
Fifteen minutes later, the door opened. The two women wheeled in the gurney and shoved it back into place against the wall. They wordlessly grabbed another bed and swept out of the room.
Kate said. “I’m scared, Chance.”
“Just stay calm. They’re just tests. If they were going to kill us, we’d already be dead.”
“How reassuring.”
They remained silent for 10 long minutes, until the women returned again.
“You’re really not going to tell me your passcode, Viola?”
“If you guess it, I’ll tell you.”
“If I guess it, you don’t need to tell me.”
“Go on, give it a shot.”
“I already guessed, Bitch.”
“Those are letters, and five of them anyway.”
They laughed as they wheeled Kate away. When the door clicked shut, Chance suddenly felt very much alone. Tahoe and Wolfie — if that’s really who were on the other beds — had yet to show
any sign of coming to.
In a fit of frustration, Chance lashed out against his restraints. He thrashed violently on the cold gurney, but the leather straps held him fast. The sound of the metal buckles clinked against the metal gurney.
Metal on metal.
He suddenly remembered something the provost had said back in the Iribe Center. She had been describing the Brain and Behavior Institute, the equipment unique to the facility. Equipment, she had said, to scan the brain, analyze its pathways. Mechanical resonance, electroencephalogram, electrocardiogram. One of the women here had said something about an fMRI.
Chance didn’t know much about these machines and tests. But he knew one thing about MRI scanners.
He had been inside one years ago. It was after his first football game. His father had dragged him to join the county league. It’ll be good for you, he had insisted. It will put hair on your balls.
Chance had feigned illness during most of the practices. But once the game began, there was nowhere to hide.
With his father looking on proudly, Chance was inserted into the game as a tight end. He was only vaguely aware of his assignment. Block someone, anyone, his coach had told him. He positioned himself at the line of scrimmage, wishing he were anywhere but there.
He didn’t hear the quarterback call for the ball and didn’t see the snap. All he saw was the blitzing linebacker, easily twice his size, bearing down on him. He flinched, and a second later, he was staring at the blackening sky.
It was the first and last play of his season. Thank goodness for concussions. A throbbing head was a small price to pay for getting to cede gracefully from the football team. His father didn’t say much to him for days. The disappointment hung from him like a too-big overcoat.
Chance saw a doctor, just in case. The doctor ordered an MRI, just to make sure there wasn’t another reason for the lingering headaches. Chance remembered three things from that MRI scan. One, the crushing feeling of claustrophobia when he was inserted into the sleek white tube. Two, there was nothing wrong with his head; he was only slightly concussed. And three, no metal was allowed inside the machine.
Escape Room Page 24