Chapter Forty-Five
ANGEL SINCLAIR
My proclamation was met by dead silence. My heart sank.
I’d been wrong, and now I’d wasted valuable time. Goodbye at any chance of making UTOP.
Just as I was turning around to instruct someone to fetch the bag with the stakes, the clear peal of a bell sounded through the clearing.
“Yes!” I screamed, jumping up and pumping my fists in the air.
Everyone dropped the awning in a jumble of poles and ropes, stripped off their goggles, and swarmed me. We allowed ourselves a few seconds of congratulations before I detached myself and pointed at the building. A large timer hung over the entrance. It had counted down to 116. I assumed it indicated the minutes we had remaining to finish the rest of the tasks.
“No time to waste,” I said. “On to the next task.”
Kira reached the door first and flung it open. We crowded around the entrance, jostling to see what was inside. At first glance it looked like the building was a large warehouse with high ceilings. The room had a narrow walkway painted white on the floor—about two people wide—while the rest was painted red, stretching out all the way to the walls on each side. The white path ended about twenty feet from the door at a slightly raised platform.
Bo stepped back and looked at me. “Do we go in?”
I wasn’t sure why he was deferring to me, but I answered anyway. “Yes.” Taking a breath, I stepped into the building, careful to stay on the white path. “Don’t touch the red floor,” I warned. “Proceed carefully.”
I made my way carefully to the foot of the platform and stopped. Kira was directly behind me, and others followed. Kira lifted her leg to step up onto the platform, but I held out an arm, stopping her.
“Wait. Let’s think about this first, okay?” I said.
She nodded and stayed where she was. We all surveyed our surroundings. On the opposite wall of the door and above another closed door hung a huge digital timer that was counting down. It showed 112.
“That’s all the time we have left to finish,” I said.
“What’s that?” Hala asked. She pointed beneath the timer where several medieval characters had been painted on the wall, seemingly moving in procession toward the door. It looked like a king and queen, a couple of princes and princesses, a few lords, and some knights on horses.
“What the heck?” Jax muttered.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, stepping up onto the platform. Kira joined me on a horizontal white-painted area just big enough to fit eight of us if we stood side by side. The others came up slowly and took their places.
When everyone was up, we studied the platform’s surface. It was comprised of rows of large square blocks arranged in columns and rows that went to the very edge of the platform. Each block had letters and a red-lighted line around it. Some of the letters were Greek, and others were English. Some blocks had only one letter, but most appeared to have two. The platform wasn’t rectangular, as its last three rows were missing some cells in the middle, but it ran all the way up to the door surrounded by the painted medieval figures. Above the door was the countdown timer.
“What in the heck?” Mike knelt to get a better look at one of the blocks. “Are we supposed to step on them to get to the door?”
“I don’t see any other way, do you?” Kira asked.
“I don’t.”
“Okay, so we’re in agreement that the challenge is to step on the blocks to get across the platform to the next door,” Jax said. “It can’t be as simple as running across.”
Bo leaned over and examined a block. “The blocks look slightly raised. I think if we step on them, they will sink and something will happen.”
“Probably turn red and the person standing on it would get a penalty,” Hala offered. “Remember Mr. Donovan said whoever steps on something red is clocked five minutes of time and has to go back to where they were before they touched it.”
Frankie giggled and we all turned to look at her. “What’s so funny?” I asked.
“I’m thinking this looks a lot like the Indiana Jones movie where if you step on the wrong square you get shot with a poison arrow, your head is sliced off, or you fall into a snake pit below.”
We stared at her in astonishment before Wally said, “She’s right. We have to figure out which blocks we can safely step on or suffer consequence, like Hala suggested.”
“Well, we’d better hurry,” Kira said. “Time is ticking.”
She was right. We’d already wasted five minutes just talking about it. In fact, a part of me couldn’t help but wonder how much of our tasks were designed to make us waste time so we couldn’t finish. My eyes met Jax’s, and it was like he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“We have to rule out that this isn’t just a puzzle designed to mess with our heads.” Jax said. “We need to test the hypothesis that we can’t just walk across.”
“Dude, they aren’t going to all this trouble just to mess with our minds,” Mike said and then looked doubtful. “Right?”
“I think we should be cautious,” Bo said. “Try to figure it out first.”
“No, Jax is right,” I said quietly. “Time is our enemy. We have to eliminate that possibility.”
“But which one of us would risk it?” Kira asked. “What if we’re disqualified?”
“No one will be disqualified,” I said. “Mr. Donovan specifically mentioned a five-minute penalty, but not a disqualification. It’s a legitimate move.”
Wally looked around. “So, who among us would volunteer for a possible five-minute penalty?”
I stepped forward. “I will.”
“Too late, Red.” Jax stepped onto a block in the first row with the Greek letter kappa on it.
While we watched, the cell sank slightly and started flashing red. Jax jumped back off as a voice came over a loudspeaker.
“Five-minute penalty to Mr. Drummond.”
“Why did you do that?” I asked Jax. “I was going to do it.”
“My idea. My risk.” He swept out a hand. “I just confirmed our hypothesis that we must deduce a pattern to cross.”
“There has to be a clue in those letters on the squares,” Hala said. “Why are some in English and some in Greek?”
“They look really familiar,” Wally mused. He stood at the edge, his hand on his chin, staring at the letters as if they would magically speak.
“The only thing I know from Greek is The Iliad or The Odyssey,” Hala offered. “But I barely remember what happened.”
“There was Euripides,” Kira suggested. “Didn’t he write several significant plays in Greek?”
“Guys, you’re overthinking,” Wally said. “These are just letters. Symbols.” He turned to me suddenly and snapped his fingers. “Symbols! That’s it. It’s the periodic table of elements.”
“What? The periodic table?” I repeated confused, staring at the blocks. “The last time I checked, there were no Greek letters in the periodic table.”
“Regardless, that’s what this is, Angel.” Wally’s voice was excited. “Look at the pattern of the blocks. They match exactly to that of the periodic table of elements…except they’re messed up.”
“Really messed up,” I agreed.
“No, Wally’s right,” Mike said. “Those letters on the cells could be the two-letter element designations.”
“But what’s with the Greek letters?” I asked in exasperation.
Wally looked at me, his eyes distant, which meant he was in deep thinking mode. “Well, there’s a Greek equivalent to the English alphabet, you know. Maybe the Greek letter is being substituted for the English one, just to make this more challenging. In fact, that makes sense if you look at that top left block. It says H and the Greek letter epsilon.”
“Um, what’s an epsilon?” Frankie asked. “Chemistry isn’t my thing.”
Wally pointed toward a funny-looking E. “Essentially it’s the Greek equivalent to an E. It’s the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet. In this case, if you translate, HE, it equals helium.”
I could feel my own excitement growing, but something still wasn’t right. “That works, but it’s in the wrong place on the periodic table, guys. Helium should be in the top right, and it’s in the top left on this one.”
Wally nodded. “I know. Somehow the table is jumbled. Maybe that means we have to jump across the blocks in order to match the periodic table.”
“That would be impossible,” Mike argued. “Those blocks are way too far apart. I mean, if we were to go in order, helium and hydrogen would be the two elements we’d have to jump on first, and they’re the farthest away from us. None of us could jump that far.”
“He’s right,” I said.
“Well, maybe we need to do it backward,” Kira offered. “You know, start with the last element and get off at the first, which would be hydrogen.”
“Still won’t work,” I said. “The door we need to go through is in front of helium, not hydrogen.”
Frustrated, we stared at the blocks. I couldn’t even bear to look at the timer as valuable time slipped away. It felt like the answer was staring us in the face, but none of us could see it.
“Wait,” Wally finally said. “We agree the elements are mixed up, but take a closer look. At least the elements are still in the same rows they’re supposed to be in. That has to mean something.”
“True,” Mike said. “They are in the correct rows. Way to be observant, Wally.”
“Thanks. But what does it mean?”
I wished I could contribute something, but I was coming up blank. My anxiety heightened.
“Not to be the bearer of bad news, but tick tock, everyone,” Jax said.
I tried not to be annoyed at him and everyone else that the pressure was just on Mike, Wally, and me to figure it out. I guess since we were the experts in chemistry, it was only fair, but still.
“Okay,” I finally said, thinking aloud. “Let’s look at what we know. We think this is the periodic table of elements. The elements are mixed up but are in the correct rows. We know we have to cross the blocks using some kind of pattern that has to do with the elements. Jax tried it randomly, and it didn’t work. They can’t expect us to pull a pattern out of thin air. So that means there has to be a clue somewhere in this room to help us determine that pattern.”
Frankie raised her hand, pointing it at the wall. “My bet is the clue has to do with the royalty painted on the wall. Other than the Greek designations on the blocks, that seems to be the only other obvious sign.”
My focus snapped back to the wall with the paintings. Frankie was right. The clue had to be on the wall.
“So what does that painting signify?” I mused aloud. “Kings, queens, knights? Where’s the clue in that?”
We all studied the mural as if the answer would magically come to us.
It didn’t.
“I don’t know,” Mike finally said, throwing his hands up in frustration. “What in the heck do a bunch of kings and queens have to do with chemistry?”
“Well, there are also knights and horses, which indicates medieval times,” Hala pointed out. “Maybe it’s highlighting an important discovery in chemistry that happened in that time frame?”
“But what?” Wally said. “Nothing leaps to mind. You got something, Angel?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got nothing.”
“Okay, what if we come at it from an entirely different angle?” Frankie said. “What do all those nobles have in common other than the fact that they’re really rich?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Wally, Mike, and I looked at each other in stunned shock. “Noble!” we shouted at her in unison.
We gave each other high fives until we realized the rest of the group was looking at us as if we’d lost our minds.
“The noble gases,” Wally explained. “Frankie, you’re a genius. Noble gases are the only nonmetal elements in the periodic table. There should be enough of them to get us across the platform. And, by the way, helium is a noble gas, and it’s at the front of the door. So that theory works.”
I nodded excitedly. “Exactly. All we have to do is decode the gases from the Greek and we’ll know which block to step on.” I threw a worried glance at Mike and Wally. “Except I don’t know what order the noble gases go in. Do you, either of you?”
Mike shook his head, but Wally grinned and tapped his head. “I got it right up here, baby.” He started walking along the first row, sliding into his commanding general role. “Okay, I see it now. That’s why they mixed up the rows—to make it harder for us.”
“That wasn’t hard enough?” Hala said.
I walked over beside Wally, looking at the blocks in a new light. “What are you looking for?”
“We have to go from the bottom up like Kira suggested, since helium is in front of the door. So if we start with the last of the noble gases, that would make it oganesson or Og.” He stopped in front of a block that had the Greek letters omega and gamma. “This is it. Here I go.”
Blowing out a nervous breath, he stepped onto the block. It sank, but stayed white. No voice came over the loudspeaker indicating a penalty.
We all cheered.
“Way to go Wally!” I said.
“Okay, I’m going to make my way across slowly,” he said jumping on the next blocks. “Radon, Rn, xenon, Xe, krypton, Kr, argon, Ar, neon, Ne, and helium, He.” He paused on the last block and raised his hands in the air. “Just like that, I’m safely at the door. It worked! But now what do I do?”
“Can you open the door?” Bo called.
“Not from up here on the block. It’s a short jump down, and it looks like there is a white area where I can safely land.”
“Well, do it!” Jax shouted.
Wally jumped down, and the door slid open. “It worked,” he yelled. “The door is now open.”
“I’ll go next,” Kira said.
Wally stayed at the foot of the platform telling her which block to jump on until she made it across. She jumped down next to him, and suddenly the door slid shut.
“What the heck?” Wally said. “The door just closed.” Kira banged on the door, but it wouldn’t open.
“What happened?” Bo asked. “Why did it close?”
“I don’t know,” Kira said. “When I jumped down next to Wally, it closed.”
“Jax, go next,” I said. “See if you can figure out what happened to the door.”
He crossed the blocks, and when he jumped down next to Kira and Wally, the door slid open.
“What in the world?” Wally said.
Jax stepped through the door. “I’m going in to investigate.”
“I’ll go with you,” Kira said, following him. They both disappeared from view.
“Everyone else, hurry up and cross,” Wally shouted. “I’ll walk you through it.”
Hala crossed next, and when she jumped down next to Wally the door slid shut, trapping Kira and Jax on the other side.
Pounding came from the other side of the door. “Open up!” Kira shouted. “We can’t see a thing in here.”
“Can you open the door from your side?” Wally asked.
“No,” Jax yelled back. “There’s no handle or release for the door on this side, at least not that we can feel. We can’t see a thing with the door shut. We’re in a narrow corridor in pitch-black. There’s no light switch, at least not that we can find.”
“I’ll see if I can help them,” Mike said as he quickly leaped across the squares on the platform. When he jumped off the block to the white space below, the door slid open. Jax and Kira spilled out.
“Well, that was interesting,” Jax said. “It’s pitch-dark when you move away from the door. There were no evident light switches, either, and we felt along the walls. We were afraid we might step on a red floor, but we couldn’t see anything.”
“They can’t penalize us for stepping on something we can’t see,” Kira objected.
“Guys, hate to break it up, but we have a problem out here,” I said from the other side. “The door appears to open when every other person jumps to the platform. There’s eight of us. The last person to cross the platform won’t make it through the door. As soon as they leap to the floor, the door will close and they’ll be stuck on this side. Unless we can find a mechanism on the inside of the door to open it again. If not, one of us will have to be eliminated.”
For a moment, we all just stared at one another, absorbing the impact of my declaration.
“Why can’t one of us who has already crossed just climb back up to helium and jump down and open the door again?” Hala suggested.
“Good idea, but I don’t think we should risk it,” Jax said. “What if the door is programmed to open only seven times?”
None of us had an answer to that.
“No one stays behind, and no one takes another risk,” Bo said. “It’s simple. The last person to go across doesn’t jump to the floor.”
“Well, how are they going to get through the door?” Mike asked.
“They jump from the platform through the door.”
“Are you nuts?” Wally said. “The jump is like fourteen feet.”
“I can’t jump that far,” I said, shaking my head.
“Me neither,” Frankie agreed.
“I can,” Bo said grimly. “You girls go across and the rest of you go through the door while it’s open. Just get the heck out of my way, because when I come through in a full jump, if someone is in the way, I won’t be taking any prisoners.”
“The corridor is really narrow,” Jax said. “Make that jump count.”
“Bo, are you sure about this?” I asked uncertainly.
“I’m positive. We don’t have time to debate this. Just trust me. Everyone else go through the door. Frankie, it will close when you jump down. Wait for Angel, and then when it opens, go through and get the heck out of my way.”
“Okay.” I turned to Frankie. “You first.”
As she crossed, I called out the blocks for her. Before she jumped down to the white-painted area, everyone else went through the door and disappeared. When she hopped down, the door slid shut. I crossed the blocks and then, with a look over my shoulder, leaped down to the white area. The door slid open.
“Okay, Frankie and Angel, go through the door,” Bo shouted at us. “And get out of the way.”
Frankie grabbed my hand. We stumbled across the threshold and were immediately swallowed by utter blackness.