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Now that she realizes there’s another platform on the other side of the gap,
Elise can make out the edge. Her flashlight gloves aren’t illuminating
Zelda, though, and neither is the glowstick over there. She tries to scan
back and forth, but nothing. “Zelda!” she cries. “Zelda, did you survive
that? Keep shakin’ that bush!”
“If she fell to her death, we should have heard her screaming,” Colley
reasons.
“Not necessarily,” Elise returns. “Some adrenaline junkies die so often that
they don’t even have the reflex to scream in fear anymore.”
“You said there was another chute?” asks the girl in the yellow shirt, whose
name Elise still doesn’t know.
“That’s what it looks like,” Elise answers. “I would sooner throw my body
against the exit than try to do what Zelda did. If she couldn’t make it, I
could never.”
“Such a compliment,” Zelda’s voice comes. She’s upside down, hanging over
the doorway.
“How are you back on this side?” Colley questions.
“Rule number two,” Zelda begins, “in an escape room, there is always a
second way. Come on, I’ll pull you up one by one. The catwalk is narrow, but
doable.”
Elise goes up first. She and Zelda then help the others up too. They walk
single-file along the three walls until making it to the other side, where
they find another door. This one opens up to a garage. It’s barely big
enough to fit the land vehicle that’s parked here. Unlike the last room,
this room is pure white and glowing. It’s pristine in an eerie sort of way.
There are no other doors. The vehicle has nowhere to go. It’s also locked.
“If there’s one thing I know from the few escape rooms I’ve tried,” the
yellow-shirt girl says as she’s sidestepping around the car, “is that if
they give you a lightswitch, you always flip it.”
All these people have done escape rooms before. Elise has never tried. They
take skill, but not definable skills. They’re not in Skilldome.
She flips the switch. The lights turn off for a few seconds before being
replaced with blacklights. The walls are absolutely covered in graffiti.
“I’m Jolanda, by the way. I don’t remember if I said that.” She’s looking at
the writing and images, as is everyone else. “I saw this in an ancient show
once. He hurt his leg real bad.”
Colley sidesteps around the car now, going the other direction, and looking
at the graffiti carefully. “I see the pattern. It’s a coded language.” He
runs his hand along the paint. “It’s actually not that complex.” He points
at various sections of the walls with both hands like he’s making
connections in his head. “I’m guessing Rage doesn’t want us to spend days in
here. Just give me a few minutes to compile the vocabulary.”
“What’s your specialty again?” Minotaur asks him.
“Anthropology, history, linguistics, culture,” Colley answers as he’s still
looking over the imagery. “I cracked the mystery of Empty Planet in record
time.”
“I’m not familiar with that one.” Elise is probably showing how sheltered
she is.
“You pretend you’ve landed on an alien world where all the aliens have
disappeared. You have to figure out what happened to them, and where the
om—never mind, that’s saying too much.” He looks over at Jolanda. “Is there
a keypad on that car?”
“Yes,” she responds. “It’s alphanumeric. Did you crack this code
too?”
“Not yet,” Colley says. He’s staring up at the very center of the ceiling,
where a circle about half a meter in diameter is suspiciously blank. “I’ll
be asking you to turn them off and on again in a particular sequence. Always
flip when I say to, with no delay.”
“Okay.” Jolanda gets into position.
Colley is still staring at that blank spot. As he instructs her when to turn
the lights off and when to turn them on, he deliberately changes tempo. She
has to flip them at the right speed for the new images to appear one by one.
Elise doesn’t recognize the glyphs but Colley seems to know exactly what
he’s seeing. “Stop, I got it. Here’s the code. One, seven, three, four, six,
seven, three, two, one, four, seven, six, castaway, three, two, seven,
eight, nine, seven, seven, seven, six, four, three, temple, seven, three,
two, volunteer, seven, three, one, one, seven, eight, eight, eight, seven,
three, two, four, seven, six, seven, eight, nine, seven, six, four, three,
seven, six.”
The door opens. “I’m driving of course,” Jolanda says, getting in the
driver’s seat.
Everyone else gets in too, even though they don’t know how to get out. Elise
is in the back. She watches Jolanda stare at the console, evidently not
knowing what to do.
“Uhh...I don’t see a start button. Machine...go!” Jolanda attempts.
“Here.” Something Elise actually knows. She leans forward and flips the
visor down. The keys fall out, so she catches them in her other hand. She
sticks it in the ignition, and turns it. She tilts her head when it revs up.
“Hm. Either this is gas-powered, or it’s simulated to be. To be safe, we
better open the door.”
“How do you do that?” Jolanda asks.
Elise reaches up again and presses the button on the garage door opener.
The wall in front of them recedes from them, splits in half, and slides to
either side. Jolanda smirks when she sees the traffic on the expansive
roadways ahead of them.
“We don’t technically have to drive,” Colley points out.
“Yes, we do,” Jolanda and Zelda say simultaneously as if having rehearsed
it.
“Hold on to your butts,” Jolanda warns.
“Samuel L. Jackson,” Colley cites, “circa 1993.”
“Wait!” Elise interrupts. “Those straps are called seatbelts. You put it
around your chests, and buckle them securely to keep your body in place.”
“You may have learned how to drive safely,” Jolanda warns as she grips the
steering wheel, and decidedly doesn’t put her seatbelt on. “I learned how to
drive well.” She slams on the accelerator, and shoots them onto the track.
Immediately, a robocar nearly collides with them, but she doesn’t let it.
Each time Elise thinks they’re about to die, Jolanda finds a way out of it.
She doesn’t ever turn her head. She can watch straight in front of her while
knowing everything else that’s going on around them. It’s a wild ride. Elise
can’t help but keep checking her mind stream. She trusts that Rage chose
this driver for a good reason, but Jolanda was right; Elise only knows how to
drive safely. She has to try to relax and let the chips fall where they may,
so to speak. After ten minutes, they find themselves right back where they
started.
“How the hell did that happen? Is this another puzzle?” Jolanda questions.
Elise unbuckles, leans forward again, and retrieves a map from the glovebox.
“Give that to me,” Minotaur requests. They spend a minute looking it over.
“Okay, I know the route. You can drive the same speed, but follow my
instructions.”
