| Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Omni Flash 1.1 |
After Elise and Rage get dried off and cleaned up, the former follows the
latter to the vactrain station where they head for a dome called The
Sandbox. Rage evidently wants the team to meet each other on neutral ground.
Before they embark on the treasure hunt, it’s prudent for them to get to
know each other first, and learn how to work as a team. Rage expects them to
be here for the next few weeks. She hasn’t yet explained why this particular
dome. Elise has never heard of it before. She still isn’t sure why she was
picked for this at all. She hasn’t excelled at the skills she’s attempted.
She just likes to try new things. It was time for a break, though, so she’s
not complaining.
It might seem like overkill, but according to Rage, this will be an
important crucible. If anyone decides to quit, it’s a lot better if they do
it before they begin the hunt. Losing a member doesn’t immediately
disqualify the remainders from moving on. Everyone could leave by the end of
it, and as long as the last remaining player sticks around, they can
succeed. But obviously Rage doesn’t want that. She wants them to be
perfectly in sync. She told Elise that she doesn’t know what that looks
like, but that will precisely be the point of the exercises.
It’s making Elise a little nervous, all this uncertainty, but knowing that
she doesn’t have to commit to anything right away has taken some of the
pressure off of her.
After the vactrain lets them off at their destination, they take a smaller
one to the other side of the dome, to an entrance where no one else is
around. Also weird, so Elise checks her consciousness stream to her backup
bodies, and they’re all fine, so she presses onwards.
They have to walk across a meadow before they get to a big warehouse in the
middle of nowhere. It feels even more remote now. There’s not even any other
infrastructure, and it doesn’t match the normal institutional architecture
of Castlebourne. Is this where Rage lives? What is the Sandbox even for?
Elise steps inside when Rage holds the door open for her. As she’s scanning
the antechamber, spotting the other people here, she hears the door close
behind her. She turns around and tries to open it but it’s locked. She tries
for a few more seconds, but it’s hopeless.
“She locked us in?” one of the strangers questions. She’s wearing a graphic
t-shirt and baggy camo pants. She, along with the others, look just as
confused and anxious.
“I don’t suppose anyone has superstrength?” Elise asks.
“No,” the guy replies. “Rage told us to come with standard human
substrates.”
“It’s a trap,” someone else determines. They’re sitting on the edge of a
metal table, one foot propped up on a chair, and the other dangling loosely.
Elise tilts her head. “I’m still connected to my backups. If she wants to
kill us, it’s not going to work on me at least.”
The person who figured that it was a trap stands up and takes a knife out of
their pocket. “I can kill anyone who wants to get out of here the easy way.
I can’t promise to make it painless, but it’s an option.”
“Let’s look for a bloodless way first,” a girl in a yellow shirt suggests.
Elise looks back down at the handle. It doesn’t have a keyhole, but it looks
like the one on the other side of the room does. She walks over to it. “I
can pick it, if anyone has something I could use. Whatever is on the other
side could be worse, though.”
Graphic tee girl pulls a bobby pin from her hair and hands it over. “If
you’re going through hell...keep going. Winston Churchill.”
“Unverified attribution,” the guy counters.
“Then I’ll take the attribution—Zelda Frances,” she self-cites.
“Colley Rochelle,” he returns.
“I’m Elise Perkins,” Elise adds as she’s finishing unlocking the door. She
doesn’t open it, though. She straights back up, and hands Zelda her pin
back.
“Can’t do it?” the girl in yellow asks.
“No, it was easy,” Elise answers. “We just need to all agree to open it.”
“As long as we’re streaming, the danger isn’t real.” Knife-wielder heads for
the door without waiting for permission. “I go by Minotaur,” they add as
they’re opening it.
Elise has to grab Minotaur by the shirt collar when they slip right over the
edge. It’s dark inside; they can’t see how deep the drop off is, but Elise
won’t be able to hold on alone much longer. Colley runs over, and reaches
down to pick up some of the slack.
“Rule number one,” Minotaur says as they’re standing back up. “look before
you leap. I’m humiliated. This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered a
trapdoor.”
“I think we all realize by now that this is a test,” Zelda says. “Rage wants
to see where we are, so she knows how to train us.”
“She doesn’t need to be tested too?” Elise questions. She puts her
flashlight gloves on, and cautiously reaches into the room. The pit is wide
and deep. Her lights don’t have the range to show her the bottom, which
means it’s too far for them to dangle and fall safely. She gets a look
around at the rest of the open area. At least two packs are hanging on the
wall, over a very narrow ledge. “I think they’re parachutes,” she announces.
Zelda gently moves Elise out of the way so she can peek around the corner,
holding Elise’s hand up to control the flightlight. Without saying a word,
she leaps over to the ledge, and holds one of the packs to brace herself.
She opens a zipper and takes out a glowstick. She cracks it in her teeth
with one hand so the other hand can keep holding on. “I need quiet, please,”
she requests, even though no one is talking.
Zelda drops the glowstick down into the pit, listening for it on the bottom.
“Thirty meters. We would never make it. There are only two packs anyway.”
“So they’re just there to tease us?” Elise asks her.
Zelda looks over her shoulder. She cracks a second glowstick, and tosses it
behind her. It lands on the other side of the pit, which is at the same
elevation. She smirks.
“No,” Elise says. “You can’t be serious.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Zelda recites.
“You shouldn’t try it,” Elise warns. “That’s at least fifteen meters,
probably more!”
“It won’t be my first time.” Zelda takes her belt off and anchors it to the
hook where the pack was hanging. She bites down on the belt to stay aloft,
leaning backwards over the pit while she puts the parachute pack on. “I’ll
find out what’s on the other side. There must be a drawbridge or something,
or there would be a pack for each of us.”
“Or we’re meant to share,” Colley offers.
“Not possible with this maneuver.” Zelda holds onto the hook with her index
fingers as she crouches on the ledge, facing the wall. After preparing
herself mentally, she pushes off like a cricket. At the perfect moment, she
releases the speedchute, using the force of the deployment to propel her
just far enough to cover the gap. Hopefully.
No comments :
Post a Comment