Testing Grounds (On Dangerous Grounds Book 1)

by G. Allen Wilbanks

  “Yeah, he’s fine,” Annie pronounced. “See? He’s still trying to look up my skirt. You perv.”

  Leon blushed, but was too relieved to be alive to be overly embarrassed. “The way you’re standing over me, it’s kind of hard not to.” He rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his feet. Sofia stood next to him and placed a hand on his arm, ready to steady him if he proved to be more injured than he appeared.

  “Besides, after you tried to kill him like that, the least you can do is let him take a good look,” Sofia told Annie once she was certain that Leon would remain on his feet. She had been joking when she made the comment, but the frown on Annie face took the humor out of the moment. “I’m sorry, Annie. That was a bad joke. This is not your fault.”

  Annie nodded, but did not appear convinced.

  “It’s nobody’s fault,” Leon assured her. “Except maybe my own for standing in the hallway like that. We should have guessed that the doors moving back to their original position was a possibility. I was being stupid. Besides, except for a couple scratches and a sore wrist, I’m fine. No harm done.”

  Leon pointed to the red door now standing solo against the far wall of the room. “Good job on moving that door,” he said, lightly.

  Annie forced a brief smile, shaking off the dark mood that had descended over her. “Perv,” she said again.

  “Go on and fuck her already!” boomed Malcolm, breaking up the conversation. “Or if not, let’s get moving, shall we? I don’t want to spend the whole bloody day in here.”

  “Sure,” Leon agreed. “And thanks for all your help there,” he added, sarcasm sharpening his tone.

  “Fuck you, mate,” Malcolm replied, calmly. “I didn’t push you into that hall. Not my job to pull you out.”

  “You useless sack of shit,” Annie blurted, but Leon laid a hand on her shoulder to calm her.

  “No, he’s right. He doesn’t owe us anything and he’s just trying to survive this mess like the rest of us. Of course, we don’t owe him anything either,”

  “That a threat?” Malcolm asked, his voice going dangerously low.

  “Nope. Just stating facts. I’m not planning on pushing you into any holes, but if you happen to fall into one on your own, don’t look too hard for a helping hand … mate.”

  Leon straightened his shirt and turned his back on Malcolm and Shoo. Without another word, he walked over to the orange door, pulled out the keystone, and went back to work.

  The doors turned out to be a consistent cycle through the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. After every violet door, another red one appeared to start the cycle over. After six full color cycles, the row of doors in the room had almost gone from wall to wall. All members of the group moved to the space closest to the exit to avoid being cut off from escape by the new rainbow barrier Leon was erecting.

  When only enough space remained to add one more door to the growing wall, Leon faced the green door standing in the hallway in front of him. When this door came down, he hoped to find only empty space behind it. If he discovered another door, they would be unable to remove it since there would be nowhere to place it. They would be effectively stuck. Leon did not believe the Apex would give them too many doors to fit in the room. That seemed counterproductive. It was a guaranteed death sentence and, up until now at least, that did not fit with the apparent motives for this set of tests.

  He pulled the black cylinder free, collapsing the green door. Behind it another barricade stood waiting, shiny and blue. Leon dropped the cylinder on the floor and allowed the collapsed door to reform without moving it.

  “Damn it. Now what?” he asked, turning to face the rest of the group.

  “This is fucking ridiculous,” cursed Annie. “How are we supposed to get out of here?”

  “Maybe, we’re okay,” said Sofia. “Leon, if you place the green door against the wall, maybe the blue door in the hallway is the last one and we can get out of here. It doesn’t make sense for the Apex to make it impossible for us to leave.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Leon admitted. “But if we go ahead and we’ve guessed wrong, we’re trapped here with no way to undo what we’ve done. That last door will be wedged into the wall too tight to move again. I don’t want to make that mistake.”

  Sofia nodded, reluctantly. “Clearly. But what alternatives do we have? We used the entire width of this room. There isn’t anywhere else to put them. Maybe we have to take the risk.”

  “Maybe. Let me think about this for a minute. I know it doesn’t mean much, but do you remember when you noticed that the pattern was cycling through the colors of the rainbow?”

  “Sure.”

  “If we move the green door, we have nowhere to put the blue door, and blue is not the last color of the cycle. Violet still comes next, and I can’t help but feel that these doors aren’t going to end in the middle of a cycle. I could be wrong, but…”

  Sofia nodded once more. “No, I understand. You might be correct. That still leaves us with no current alternatives.”

  “Diagonal,” Hiss interrupted.

  All eyes turned to him. Hiss lowered his head and hunched his shoulders forward, uncomfortable at being the sudden center of attention. He pressed his small hands together and fidgeted, shifting foot to foot where he stood.

  “Go ahead,” insisted Shoo. “Your thoughts, finish.”

  “The doors, corner to corner, place. Diagonal, larger than side of triangle, is. Red door, from corner, start.”

  Leon groaned inwardly. Hiss had found an alternative. That was a good thing. If they restarted the row of doors from one corner of the room, they would have enough space for two or three, maybe even four extra doors. Unfortunately, to do that, they needed to dismantle the wall they had spent the last fifteen minutes creating, and since they could no longer reach the red door at the front, they would need to take down every individual door one at a time before they could start the whole process of building over again. This whole project was taking much longer than he had initially hoped it would.

  “Everyone stay clear of the exit hallway,” Leon announced. “I’m going to tear this thing apart so we can start over.”

  “Aw, fuck,” growled Malcolm. “You right numpty. How many times are ye goin’ to jobby this up?”

  Leon kept his back toward Malcolm. He squared his shoulders and tried to keep his voice level as he responded to the verbal attack. “You’re welcome to step in if you think you can do better. Otherwise, please shut the hell up.”

  “What did you say to me, boyo?” Malcolm stepped directly behind Leon, leaning in close and attempting to use his greater height to intimidate the younger man into backing down.

  Leon did not move away. Instead, he turned, finding himself face to face with the angry Scotsman. Although he wanted nothing more than to duck and run away, he knew backing down would be a defeat from which he could never come back. Malcolm wanted him to run to establish his dominance in the group. For his own safety and that of Sofia and Annie, Leon could not let that happen. A beating would be a better outcome than surrender. At least, after the fight, Malcolm would know Leon refused to be intimidated. Besides, there was nowhere for him to run to in this tiny room.

  “I said take over or shut up. Are you deaf as well as stupid?” Leon slipped the hand axe from his belt, holding the weapon loose at his side and gently tapping the blade against the wall behind him. The suggested threat was not subtle, nor was it intended to be. His heart raced in his chest and his breathing became shallow as he tensed for Malcolm’s reaction.

  Malcolm glanced down at the axe in Leon’s hand then back to his face, gauging his odds as well as whether or not he thought the kid in front of him had enough guts to follow through. His face twisted in a grimace, then he turned his head and spat on the floor. Stepping back a pace, he pointed a finger at Leon’s chest, not quite touching him.

  “We’re not done with this, mate. Not by a long chalk.”

  “I think
we are,” Leon told him. He slipped the axe back into its holder ring, trying to appear calm though he feared Malcolm might charge him at any moment.

  His hands shook, and Leon buried them in his pockets so no one else could see how much the confrontation unsettled him. Standing quietly, Leon watched Malcolm walk away. He didn’t trust himself to move or speak while he waited for his breathing to come back under control and for his hands to stop shivering. Malcolm, for his part, moved to one corner of the room and seemed to be content with glaring across the open space between them.

  “Hey, blondie,” piped Annie. She positioned herself beside Leon as she addressed Malcolm. “Just so you know, if you had jumped Idaho here, it wasn’t going to be fair fight. I don’t sit back and watch when my friends are in trouble.” Annie showed Malcolm her middle finger. “And in case there isn’t any Scottish variation of that, it means fuck you.”

  Malcolm did not respond. He continued to glare, but now his attention was split between Annie and Leon. Leon, bolstered by Annie’s unexpected support, did not flinch away from the man’s gaze.

  “Clear the hallway,” said Leon, ending the stalemate when he was reasonably certain his voice would remain steady. He pulled the black cylinder from the yellow wall at the end of the row and tossed it casually into the exit tunnel.

  One door at a time, Leon broke down the wall in the room and filled the hallway. Like clockwork, he collapsed one door and tossed the keystone. As soon as that door reformed, he collapsed the next. Pull, toss, wait. Pull, toss, wait. Over and over for five minutes. Then ten. No one spoke as he worked. There was nothing more to be said as all lines in the sand had already been drawn, and everyone in the group knew where they stood in relation to the others.

  Leon, Sofia, and Annie were a team, forged from necessity. Each would watch the others’ backs. Individually, they may not be much to consider, but together they were sufficiently formidable to keep each other safe. Malcolm was the true danger to all of them. Fortunately, his behavior with Michael earlier and his more recent decision to back down against Leon made it clear that the big man did not like to start fights that he wasn’t one hundred percent certain he could win. He was a bully, but also a bit of a coward.

  Shoo, on the other hand, was a different kind of threat. She did what most benefitted her own chances of survival. If that meant working as a team, she could be the perfect team player. If not, she would not shed a tear if someone else died while assuring that she herself was safe. Assuming the Many could shed tears of course, and Leon was almost certain they did not.

  Pull. Toss. Wait.

  Then there was Hiss. Although clearly subordinate to Shoo and willing to do her bidding at all times, Leon was uncertain of the tall alien’s personal motivations. He wanted to survive, certainly, they all did, but at the same time, he seemed to have at least a rudimentary conscience. After all, he hadn’t been ordered to come rushing to the rescue when Leon got caught in that tidal wave of door pieces. Yet, he had done it without hesitation, taking risks contrary to his own self-preservation.

  Pull. Toss. Wait.

  Finally, only the original red door remained in the room. Leon stared at the orange door, back at the head of the queue, blocking the exit. All this time and effort, plus almost getting himself killed, and they were right back where they had started. The sight of the barricaded hallway was almost enough to break his spirit. He wanted to sit down. No, he wanted to lie down and curl up into a ball. The frustration of this never-ending challenge – not only this room, but the whole experience – was chewing up little pieces of his will and spitting them out. The only thing keeping him going was the desire not to let Sofia and Annie down. He did not want them to see him faltering. He needed them to know they could continue to rely on him.

  He used that resolve to keep moving. Leon wanted to be seen as an asset, not a liability, and he was equally determined not to let Malcolm see any weakness that might be exploited. Being around that man was exhausting. Leon had to constantly stay on guard. It was like finding oneself trapped with a hungry jackal. As long you faced it, the cowardly scavenger would keep its distance, but the moment you turned your back on it, you became dinner.

  With a tired sigh, Leon collapsed the red door and moved the keystone into the corner of the room. Half a minute later, the door reformed facing toward the exit hallway. He broke it down again, this time orienting the center piece in a different direction. The door emerged facing the side walls.

  “I can’t get it to angle toward the corner of the room,” Leon complained. “I don’t know if it can.”

  “Here, let me try,” said Sofia.

  Leon gestured at the door and stepped out of her way. Sofia spent the next five minutes collapsing the door into its component parts and placing the black cylinder into a variety of locations and positions. The door reformed time after time, stubbornly refusing to cooperate. It appeared the structure could only be erected facing front to back, or side to side in the room. A diagonal row did not seem to be a viable option.

  Sofia dropped her hands in defeat. “I give up. It was a good idea, Hiss, but I don’t think we can make it work. Now what?”

  They all stood silent, facing each other and waiting for someone to suggest an idea. No one obliged. The only option on the table was place the doors across the room from one side to the other, exactly as they had arranged them before, then pray the door remaining in the hallway proved to be the final door they had to get past. No one in the room loved that idea. If they guessed wrong, they would be permanently trapped here. None of them were eager to pursue that possibility. It might, however, be the only course left to them.

  Annie broke the stalemate. She walked up to the orange door blocking their exit. Her lips pursed, and her face pinched in thought as she examined the rectangle carefully. Standing at the edge of the barricaded hallway, she held her hands out to her sides far enough to touch her fingertips to each side of the passage. She turned, keeping her hands outstretched, and paced across the length of the room to disappear into the narrow passage through which they had all entered. When she stepped back out a few moments later, she had a triumphant smile on her face.

  “The hallway that dumped us in here is about the same size as the one we’re trying to get into,” she said.

  “Yes!” exclaimed Sofia. At the same time, Hiss and Shoo began to click their mandibles and gesture excitedly to one another.

  Leon felt slightly stupid, not understanding the sudden exuberance. He glanced at Malcolm, but seeing the other man similarly puzzled did not make him feel any better. Leaning closer to Sofia, he whispered, “I don’t get it.”

  Sofia touched a hand to his arm and whispered back, “If the doors fit in one hallway, they might fit in the other.”

  The excitement became infectious, and a wide grin split Leon’s face. “Try it!” he blurted at Annie, pointing at the red door standing its silent vigil in the corner of the room.

  Annie grasped the black circle and pulled it free. As the door fell behind her, she rushed down the entrance tunnel to the far wall, dropped the centerpiece and ran back to the rest of the waiting group. Thirty-three seconds later, to the delighted cheers of everyone in the room, the red door reassembled at the end of the hall.

  “That’s it,” Leon exclaimed. “We figured it out!”

  Annie gave him a sideways look, then punched him in the ribs. Leon coughed and rubbed at his side where her knuckles had connected. “Yeah, we did,” she said, putting sarcastic emphasis on the word “we.” “I’m so happy for us.”

  Leon wrapped Annie in a brief hug, partly out of joy and partly to keep her from hitting him again. “Okay, okay. Point taken,” he laughed, releasing her. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Taking his own advice, Leon pulled the black keystone from the orange door, jogged across the room and down the entrance hallway. He settled the cylinder against the red anchor door and hustled back out of the gap. All six of the remaining travelers watched with satis
faction as the orange fragments of door trailed across the floor and down the hall toward their new home. Leon repeated the maneuver three more times for the yellow, green, and blue doors, but when Sofia noticed him becoming winded from the exertions, she volunteered to take a turn.

  Soon, everyone was participating, including Malcolm. Each person dropped a door, repositioned the keystone then rested while the next five doors were moved by others. The system worked smoothly, and no one had to worry about becoming too tired to continue. After six cycles of this group effort, Leon realized they had arrived at the same point they had reached earlier while stacking doors across the room.

  They placed a green door in the entrance hall, leaving enough room for one more door before the tunnel was completely blocked. Back in the exit passageway, a blue door waited.

  “Hold on a minute, guys,” Leon urged. He waited until he had everyone’s attention before continuing. “I’ve been counting, and I wanted everyone to know we’re back where we were before. If we move this blue door and there’s nothing behind it, we have successfully wasted a lot of time. But that’s all we wasted: time. If there’s another door waiting behind this one, then we saved our asses from getting trapped in here forever.”

  “Thanks for the announcement, Idaho,” Annie said. “Now, if you’re done amusing yourself, it’s my turn. Do you mind?”

  Leon gave her an embarrassed smile, then waved a hand in a “be my guest” gesture. Annie pulled the black cylinder and all eyes turned to watch the door collapse. Behind the blue door, stood another immovable lavender barrier. The violet door represented a potentially fatal decision that only Annie’s solution had successfully averted.

  Annie relocated the blue door. When it resolidified, it completely filled what remained of the entry corridor. The hallway was now full, but that did not mean their task was complete. To Leon’s mild surprise, when the lavender door came down next, it was not the final door in the sequence. He had strongly suspected the cycle would finish and the challenge would end as well, since they had already solved the most difficult riddle by utilizing the entrance for extra space. He had hoped the lavender door represented the final lap through the rainbow series of colors before they could escape to their next challenge. Unfortunately, a brand new, bright red door waited behind it.