Shaun pointed to the two nearest cubicles. “That one is almost entirely empty, and the only out-of-place items in this work domicile are a poker chip and a toy slot machine.”
“Any clues on either?” Arlo asked.
Shaun held the chip up to the light. “Lotus Hotel and Casino,” he read. “Las Vegas, Nevada.”
Same casino as the receipts in the drawer Persey had been searching. Coincidence? Probably not. She was about to bring it up when Wes stormed into the cubicle and snatched the chip from Shaun-bot’s hand. “Gimme that.”
Arlo approached the desk. “You gonna tell us how you’re related to the Lotus Hotel, or shall we guess?”
But Wes ignored her, jaw clenched, body suddenly tense and awkward. Whatever the connection he had to that casino, it wasn’t a pleasant one.
Wes turned the poker chip over in his hands a few times while he stared fixedly at the miniature replica of the one-armed bandit mounted on the desktop beside an inkjet printer. It stood about a foot high, and unlike the modern electronic equivalents that populated other Las Vegas casinos, this one was old-school: the arm attached to its side looked as if it might move, the three reels on its face sported classic symbols like cherries, a lemon, and the number seven, and a large opening in the side could fit a full-size poker chip.
“There’s a coin slot in the side, you know,” Arlo said, prompting him. “That’s probably where—”
“I know how to work a fucking slot machine,” Wes said. Then, with a glance at the ticking clock and an expression that Persey could only describe as constipated, he dropped the poker chip into the coin slot on the machine.
The chip thunked against the metal interior as it fell to the bottom, then another door opened on the far wall.
“Finally,” Wes said as he ambled across the room. “Anything is better than being stuck in here with you assholes. Out.”
Persey was pretty (positively) sure no one was sorry to see him go.
The remaining contestants spread out again, digging through items in the six remaining cubicles. While Neela busied herself with the drawers, Persey noticed that Mackenzie, Arlo, and Shaun kept glancing in their direction. Keeping an eye on the competition.
“I found this,” Neela said, holding up an old-fashioned brass key, the kind that Victorian housekeepers would have dangling from their pockets by a large chain, used for opening the mistress’s chamber, the good parlor, and the wine vault. “And there’s a set of locks in one of the drawers.”
“Seriously?” Arlo asked. As if Neela was going to lie to her.
“Yeah. Different sizes and shapes. And each has a number. Like in a hotel or an apartment building.”
“Ring any bells for anyone?” Arlo asked.
Everyone shook their heads, whereupon Neela began to recite the numbers out loud. “Twenty-seven. Four hundred and twelve. Two-B. One Eighty West A.”
Mackenzie sucked in a breath. “What?”
“Two-B?” Neela repeated. “One Eighty West A?”
“What does it mean?” Shaun asked.
“It’s the address of—” Mackenzie caught herself in time. Whatever information she’d been about to divulge in her dumbstruck state froze on her tongue and was lost as she recalled where she was and who she was with. “Address of a friend,” she said confidently. “Just an old friend.”
Persey knew what a lie looked like when she saw it on someone’s face.
Mackenzie’s hand trembled as she took the key from Neela and approached the lock labeled “One Eighty West A.” She turned it slowly, chest completely still as she held her breath, and in the near silence, Persey could hear a soft click and, once again, another door opened on the far wall. Mackenzie didn’t wait to be asked about her “old friend”; she was across the room and down the narrow passageway before anyone could ask a follow-up.
“THREE DOWN, FIVE TO GO,” ARLO SAID; THEN SHE HELD UP AN item from inside her cubicle so they could all see it. “This Rubik’s Cube on steroids…any takers?”
As much as Persey hated to admit it, Arlo’s description was appropriate. In the palm of her hand sat a multisided ball-shaped thing with pentagonal faces made up of little shapes, all in different colors. Brown, green, blue, red, yellow…There had to be a dozen at least, and Persey saw that they were all mixed up on each of the faces.
“A Magic Dodecahedron!” Neela cried out, like a child on her birthday who just discovered that Mom and Dad finally brought that pony she’d been asking for. “Also known as the Megaminx. And you are correct, Arlo. It is a Rubik’s Cube on steroids.”
“Anyone else know what it is?” Arlo asked.
Everyone shook their heads. Persey couldn’t even solve a regular Rubik’s cube, let alone this monster.
“Then this must be for you.” Arlo tossed the Megaminx over the wall. Neela caught it one-handed and eagerly began to examine the faces. “Twelve colors, probably looking for a standard solving pattern. I was Megaminx champion for the greater Philadelphia area three years running when I was in high school.” She smiled sheepishly at Persey. “Puzzles like this are kind of my thing.”
“I thought math was your thing?” Shaun asked.
“My other thing.”
“Can you solve it?” Persey asked.
“Oh yes,” Neela said with a slight laugh. Then she glanced at the clock. “Eight minutes, but this should only take me about four. Keep looking while I take care of this.”
“Looks like this cubby has its own library,” Riot said, rounding the corner at the end of the aisle. “That must be for me.”
“Librarian?” Persey asked, remembering Leah’s comment from the introductions: Once a librarian, always a librarian.
Riot nodded. His Mohawk didn’t budge. “Part-time, ever since high school. And I’ve been putting myself through grad school working as a shelver at…” His voice trailed off as he scanned the row of books on the desk. “Huh.”
“What?”
“N-nothing,” he stuttered, his face turning a sickly shade of yellow. “I just…It’s weird that they’re all books from the same section. Six five two point eight. Filed correctly.”
Persey hadn’t brushed up on the Dewey decimal system lately (ever), and she couldn’t fathom what genre of books would make the color drain from Riot’s face. “What section?”
“Cryptography.” He pulled one book from the shelf, and immediately another door slid open. Instead of rushing in like Wes did, Riot stared at the opening, shaken.
“You okay?” Persey asked.
Riot nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Then he smiled at her over his shoulder. It was genuine, not like Kevin’s smirks, which always made Persey feel like he was a step ahead of her, and there was something else—the way he glanced down at the rest of her before his eyes focused on her face. Persey didn’t know why, but she felt her chest heat up.
Riot’s smile deepened. “I’ll see you on the other side, okay?”
Persey nodded, confused and betrayed by her body’s reaction. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Done!” Neela cried, sparing Persey a moment of much-feared introspection. She held up the dodecra-thingy in victory. Each side was now a solid color. “Less than three minutes! It was easier than I anticipated. An amateur must have set it, and unlike the standard three-by-three of a Rubik’s or similar puzzle, the solving of a Megaminx is really all about who sets it up.”
“If it’s solved,” Shaun said slowly, “then why isn’t your door open?”
Neela’s face fell, confidence shaken. “I…I don’t know.”
“I’ve got a weird old-fashioned typewriter over here,” Arlo called out from the far side of the room. She was like a well-oiled machine when it came to rummaging through other people’s stuff. “Ring a bell for anyone?”
Shaun stood on tiptoes to peer over the wall into the cubicle. “That’s an original SIGABA, also known as an ECM Mark II encryption device, circa 1944. Standard-issue Allied electric cipher machine.” He sounded neither exc
ited nor impressed.
“Then Ima guess this is for you,” Arlo said, stepping aside.
“Riot’s books were on cryptography, and Shaun’s thing is an encryption device?” Neela muttered at Persey’s side, the solved puzzle toy still firmly clasped in her hands as they rounded the wall to where Arlo had discovered it. “That can’t be a coincidence, can it?”
Persey seriously doubted it. “Let’s figure out what to do with your mega-thingy.”
The cubicle she and Neela were currently in was the least decorated workplace Persey had seen in the room, other than the one Shaun described as being mostly empty, making the appearance of the brightly hued puzzle toy that much more striking among the drab, impersonal interior. And it also meant that the solution to Neela’s challenge should be easy to spot.
Except not so much. “Arlo,” Persey asked. “Where did you find that thing?”
“In a drawer,” Arlo replied from the last cubicle in the row.
So (not) helpful. “Which one?”
Instead of answering, Arlo verbalized her search process as she went. “This desk is cluttered with tchotchkes, collectible toys, novelty paperweights, a mouse pad designed like a Pac-Man maze. I think this one is mine.”
“Thank God,” Neela muttered under her breath. “Maybe she’ll stop talking now.”
As much as Persey had to acknowledge the irony of Neela’s words, she also had to laugh. Cuz yeah.
“I believe my door is open,” Shaun announced. Persey hadn’t seen what he’d done, but he was right. One more section of the wall had slid open, revealing a dark passageway beyond. “I shall be leaving now.”
“Okay, Shaun-bot,” Arlo laughed dryly. “Don’t let the door swat your metal ass on the way out.” She was fixated on something, which probably meant she too was just moments away from opening her door.
Meanwhile, Persey and Neela were getting nowhere.
“Let’s list everything we see,” Persey suggested. “Sometimes it helps to say it out loud.”
“Computer,” Neela began, starting with the obvious. “Keyboard, mouse, external speakers, stapler, empty document caddy, pen holder with exactly one pen in it, and a coffee mug warmer.”
Persey’s eye was immediately drawn to the black-and-white tray meant to keep one’s coffee cup from getting cold. Everything else on the desk would have been standard-issue office supplies, except that. That was something the company wouldn’t have supplied. Something the employee would have brought from home. As she stared at the generic device, its white plastic shell and circular black metal base began to take on a familiar pattern. Leaning closer, Persey could see that someone had drawn a shape in black marker, almost imperceptible except for the fact that the dried ink reflected the lights in a different way. There were five lines drawn inside the circle, creating a pentagon.
Just like one of the faces of the Megaminx.
“Put it on the coffee warmer,” Persey said, pointing.
“You think?”
Persey nodded quickly. “Look close. There’s a pentagon drawn on—”
“There’s a pentagon drawn on here!” Neela squealed. “Jinx, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,” she said, rattling off the numbers so quickly as she tried to undo the bad luck created when the two of them said the same thing at the same time, that she sounded like an auctioneer on cheap trucker speed. Then, with a flourish, she lined a face of the Megaminx up with the shape drawn on the coffee warmer and placed it delicately on the surface.
Something on the desk clicked, then another door opened.
“Holy cow babies!” Neela cried, throwing her arms around Persey’s neck. “Thank you so much. I never would have seen that myself. I get a little, um, crazed when my adrenaline is up.”
“A little?”
Neela blushed. “Right.”
“There!” Arlo cried. The door beside Neela’s opened with a thud. “The IP address for Geektacle? Too easy, Escape-Capades!”
“Arlo’s pop culture website,” Neela explained, without waiting for Persey to ask. “For gamers and puzzle solvers, sci-fi and comic book and fantasy fans. It’s like our happy place.” Her eyes followed Arlo as she disappeared through her door, which sealed itself behind her.
“Our?”
“I have an account and I peruse quite a bit.” Neela laughed uncomfortably. “Like, I’m kind of an Arlo fangirl, but don’t tell her. I mean, I’d die.”
“I won’t.” Especially since it would only increase Arlo’s ego.
“But I also like the content. Arlo posts a lot of puzzles, and there’s some healthy competition to solve them first. That’s my favorite part. Keeps me sharp.”
“Like the Megaminx?”
“Ha, yes! I don’t like to brag, but I can generally solve a level-eight puzzle box in under an hour, which is top ten percentile. Like last year when DaringDebunker posted specs to this one top secret puzzle that no one could solve and I was able to—”
“Five minutes.”
“Son of a Shatner!” Neela said, rated G even in a time of extreme stress. “We still need to figure out your door mechanism.”
Persey waved her off. “Oh, it’s over there.”
Neela tilted her head to the side. “You already found it?”
“Well, there’s only one cubicle left.”
“Good point! You need help?”
She didn’t want anyone to see what her special “thing” might be. Even (especially) Neela. “I’ll be okay. They don’t want us to fail this early, so I bet it’s pretty easy.”
“You sure?”
“Totally.”
“Okay,” Neela said, heading toward her door. “Here goes nothing!”
Persey waited until Neela had completely disappeared down the hallway before she entered the last cubicle. As soon as Shaun had mentioned that one of the cubicles was mostly empty, she knew it was meant for her.
With three minutes remaining, Persey stepped through the low wall into the barren space. Not even a standard-issue desktop computer and wheelie chair had been added, and all that stared back at her were the items that couldn’t be removed: the built-in L-shaped desk and an office telephone.
She picked up the handset, registering the old-fashioned dial tone coming through the speaker, and quickly typed in a phone number. She’d barely released the last digit when one final door in the wall swung open.
THE PADDED CORRIDOR ENDED WITH YET ANOTHER DOOR, which Persey pushed open, stepping into the chamber beyond. The moment she entered, the door swung closed and locked behind her.
To say that the room was dark was a total understatement. It was completely freaking black; not even a hint of the red lights from the hallway. Can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face kind of dark. Persey knew because she tried.
There’s no need to panic. Nothing to be afraid of. Focus on why you’re here.
The prize money. That was enough to calm her down.
She reached her hands to either side in an attempt to get a feeling, literally, for the room. Her palms steadied as they landed on smooth, hard walls just inches beyond her shoulders. So less a room and more a closet. Hands held up in front so she didn’t smack into anything, she took several tentative steps forward before she was stopped by the fourth wall.
In the darkness, she felt around for something that might denote the kind of challenge she was up against. A puzzle. A maze. Something visual or something tactile? No clue.
“Hello?” she said out loud, testing the acoustics. Her voice sounded dead and flat, which meant the closet was probably soundproof, or heavily insulated at the very least. She could barely hear the sound of her own breath as she struggled (failed) to keep her heart rate at bay.
She knew the darkness and the muted quality of the room were tactics meant to instill panic, to inflame her desperate need to escape, which would inevitably lead to her inability to think clearly. She’d read about how escape room designers used things like claustrophobia, peer pressure, and
misdirection to make their challenges more difficult, and at Escape-Capades, they had that shit down. Persey could feel her heart thumping in her chest, her breaths coming shorter and shorter, which would eventually lead to light-headedness, and it took every ounce of her emotional strength not to turn back toward the door and pound on it with her fists, demanding to be released.
The lights will come on soon. They’ll have to. Stay calm. Be patient. Everyone else is in the same boat.
Maybe, but Persey seriously doubted if super-cool Mackenzie or tough-as-nails Arlo were freaking out. She closed her eyes—wondering if it even mattered since it was as dark with her lids down as with them up—and counted. One. Two. Three. Four. Five…
“Ten minutes.”
The lights inside the chamber flared to life with such ferocity that a searing pain ripped through Persey’s eyeballs, like a dagger driving straight to her brain. Seriously, again? Even with her lids closed, she let out a groan as her heavily dilated pupils screamed against the onslaught. She peeled one corner of her left eye open, exposing it to a piercing white-yellow glow, then snapped it shut again.
Another tactic to keep her unbalanced, the utter darkness and the blinding light in alternation. She had to do it like a Band-Aid. Rip it off in one swift pull. With a deep breath, Persey opened her eyes.
The wall in front of her appeared blurry at first, but as her eyes focused, and her pupils raced to resize themselves, the panel came into view. There was a number pad embedded in the wall, angled at forty-five degrees with an old LCD screen beside it. Pixelated white letters scrolled across the blue background, spelling out “Welcome to the Bank of Persephone” and above it were two stationary readouts in each corner of the screen: on the left, a countdown clock, starting at ten minutes, and on the right, a bar graph like the battery indicator on her phone, but labeled O2.
The Individual Challenge had begun.
Unfortunately, it was a stressful start. Persey groaned as she registered what the O2 bar graph must mean. She was about as good at chemistry as she was at math, so if this test involved some kind of reaction calculation, she was pretty much screwed. Puzzles and patterns? Those seemed to come naturally to Persey, but the academic stuff triggered her anxiety. She knew enough to identify the O2 as a measure of oxygen, but other than that, she had no idea. Was the required code the atomic number of oxygen? That seemed too easy….
#NoEscape (Volume 3) (#MurderTrending) Page 8