Microstory 2758: Headwater

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The survivors look up at the sky, expecting Hrockas to reappear to announce Miracle’s death, like this is some kind of dystopian survival game. He doesn’t do that, though, and doesn’t need to. They all saw it. Miracle’s first teleportation could have been a weird trick of the mind, but it’s harder to explain it away this time. It looks like various forms of time travel are possible, and that one of these forms killed her. She will survive, or at least one version of her will. She will have no memories of her life after she was taken from her hotel room, and thrown out the window at the start of this. It’s unclear what she’ll think happened, or what she’ll do now. She may try to fight her way back, but if they really are in another dimension, that might be impossible.

The stakes have officially been raised. Death is plainly on the table, and the traps might be unpredictable, and even inexplicable. They have no idea where any other mines could be hiding. Hrockas wouldn’t have let them get this far if there were no way out, though. If he actually didn’t want them to find the treasure, he probably would have simply erased their memories. That’s not illegal here in the Charter Cloud of the galaxy.

“This is another escape room,” Rage determines. “I’ve even played one very similar to this before. They were regular land mines, of course, but the trick is finding the only safe path between them. We need to get to higher ground.”

“I will take care of that,” Zelda volunteers. She tries to jump up to a beam attached to the outside of the dome, but she can’t get that high in her tiny frame.

Minotaur helps her up. They’re taller, so they follow on their own with less issue.

They can’t climb up too far because they’re constantly curving away from the street, eventually reaching a point where they would lose the perspective advantage.

“See anything notable?” Rage shouts up to them. “Darkened squares? Anything?”

“There’s nothing!” Zelda cries back. “Minotaur is getting nauseated!”

“Come on back down!” Rage tells them. “It’s not safe!”

Everyone has been looking up at them, of course, but Elise has just now realized that Colley has been looking in the wrong direction. His eyesight is darting back and forth across the sky, and he sometimes turns completely. “What is it?” she asks.

“Has anyone here been to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida?” Colley asks.

“I have,” says one of the only two remaining hunters from Miracle’s team. Elise has not even gotten the chance to learn her name yet, even though it would have been plastered on her locker at the starting line. “I was born on a stasis ship that was part of the original fleet because my parents were awake the whole time as Shepherds.”

“Do you know Bida’s constellations?” Colley presses. “Because I don’t...except for that one.” He points. “That’s the feather duster, which is how I know this is a clue, because we’re a hundred light years from Tau Ceti. It has to be on purpose.”

The girl looks up as well. “Umm...I think you’re right, but I’m not much into the astrology. Unlike Earth, my ancestors never needed stars to navigate. Colonists contrived constellations for fun, according to what I remember. I think that might be the River Dhel, though. It’s the most important one for many of the world’s superstitions because it reflects the real river for a brief window every night.”

“When is the window?” Elise asks her. “And does anyone have a watch?”

“I have a watch on my multitool,” Minotaur says as Jolanda is helping them back down to the ground. “Why do we need it? What did we miss while we were up there?”

“The window depends on what day of year it is,” Colley explains. “We would need a Bidan calendar, and we would need to know what time it is—”

“We don’t need a Bidan calendar,” the Bidan girl argues. “I know we don’t need it because we don’t have it, and had no chance of taking one with us. I just need to know what time it is right now. It doesn’t even have to be the right time according to anyone in the outside world. Hrockas would have accounted for that when programming it.”

“She’s right,” Elise agrees. “You have a timekeeper because he wanted you to.”

“It’s 20:42,” Minotaur answers. “It’s true, I don’t know what planet.”

“For now, it’s Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida,” the Bidan decides, “and we’re too late. The reflection happens at the same time as the lunar culmination every year on the same night between 20:24 and 20:31. It’s a holiday. We took too long to figure out the clue.”

“Point out the river again,” Colley says. He moves over to stand next to her. They quietly work out exactly which stars make up the constellation while he looks down at the ground, a little off to the side, away from Miracle’s still dead body. “We got it.”

“You remember where the stars were fifteen minutes ago?” Rage asks him.

Colley clicks his tongue and taps on his head. “Hrockas can force me into any substrate he wants, but he can’t stop me from having an eidetic memory,” he echoes Miracle from before she hit an apparent teleportation mine and fell to her death.

Rage takes a breath. “Okay, we’ll draw for lead. Colley, you’re out of the running this time since you have the map. Our new Bidan friend is too for the same reason.”

“No, please don’t draw,” Jolanda says. “I’ve not been contributing anything to the hunt, and need to feel useful. I’ll take lead. I had a conversation with myself shortly before my consciousness stream was cut. I’m prepared to wake up without memories.”

“Okay, we have a volunteer.” Rage looks around at the group. “Any objections?”

No one objects, so Jolanda stands in front. Colley stands behind her, but far enough away to be hopefully safe from the blast of a land mine. It will hopefully not happen at all, but they’re not too naïve to be prepared for it. Everyone else walks in a single-file line behind him and the Bidan. Colley directs Jolanda slowly. The assumption is that the river mouth ends at the fountain in the center of the square. It’s less likely that they would have to walk the entire length of the river in order to perfectly replicate what the believers on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida would do during their special annual holiday. They seem to be correct once they reach that fountain and no one has died yet. Assuming this will lead them further down the path to their prize, there’s now another puzzle to solve, though. And they don’t know where to begin.

Zelda sticks her face in the dark water. She then slowly starts diving deeper and deeper until only her feet remain, which Rage and Elise have to hold onto so she doesn’t sink to the bottom. After a few more seconds, she taps on her own hip, which they take to mean it’s time to pull her up. “It’s bottomless.”

“You don’t know that,” the other non-team member contends.

“I think we’re supposed to get in,” Zelda figures. “A leap of faith.”

The Bidan nods. “In my planet’s origin story, which we all know someone made up, the creator God takes a leap of faith in the River Dhel where she finds the energy she needs to conjure the star.” She points to a sculpture. “She is represented by a fish.”

That’s all Zelda needs. She jumps in headfirst. Nearly everyone else follow.

Microstory 2750: Directions

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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.”