Distraction was not hard to come by at Kingsman HQ. Once Ian and Noel parted ways, Ian went back to his room to explore the bookcase. The volumes within were not the technical tomes that Ian had expected. Instead, each of the three shelves contained a different genre of literature- the classics, Arthurian legend, and- of course- spy fiction. Ian found himself shaking his head, a faint smile on his face. His deep-rooted suspicions told him that Noel was the one who had stocked the bookcase. No one else has such… delightful taste.He chose a random book from the Arthurian shelf and settled down to read.
When 11:00 rolled around, Noel's knocking at the door startled Ian out of his selection. "Ian, you still up?"
"Yeah, I'm coming," Ian responded, shutting the book and standing up. He met Noel in the hall, who led the way to the elevator.
Little was spoken as they reached the bottom level. Ian assumed he'd be led back to the barracks, so it came as a surprise when Noel passed the doors and moved further down the corridor.
"Excuse me, N…. Merlin. What's the nature of this test?"
"We're to test how these candidates perform under pressure, and how well they work together," Noel said. "Problem-solving in an unfamiliar environment is a very useful skill to have, but the mark of a Kingsman is one who can get the job done without sacrificing his teammates along the way." He unlocked a door adjacent to the barracks and pushed it open. "You'll understand once the test ends."
The room's interior was just as gray and bare as the barracks were. Its only furnishings were a chair and a computer terminal, which appeared to be hooked up to a large TV screen. As Ian stepped into the room, his feet sunk into the carpet.
A padded floor?
Noel went straight for the monitor. He tapped at the keyboard, bringing both it and the TV screen to life with a live feed of the barracks. All the candidates were tucked into their bunks, having dutifully put their lights out at 10.
"There they are," Noel murmured, half to himself. "Soundly sleeping."
His fingers shuttled swiftly across the keyboard, summoning what looked like a schematic of the barracks' layout. He brought it up side-by-side with the view from the cameras, clicked on an area of the schematic, and jabbed at a key.
"Well… not for long."
Onscreen, the barracks transformed in a way that ought to have defied physical laws. The floor slowly receded into the wall, leaving each bed hanging in space. Below them, unbeknownst to the sleeping candidates, was a deep pit. Even through an aerial view, Ian couldn't make out the bottom.
His stomach dropped, but the sensation was followed by a surge of relief. At least I'M not in that room…
"What the hell?!"
"The fuck's going on?"
His mind muddled from the rude awakening, Harry sat up and reached for the light switch above his bunk, illuminating the scene. Across the room from him, five men sat awake in their bunks, gripping their bedsheets with terror in their eyes.
And between both sides of the room… nothing. No more concrete floor. A yawning chasm took the place of where the surface had once been. Only the bed kept Harry from plummeting into it.
His heart began to pound. "What's going on?!" The rest of the candidates were either too frozen or too swept away by pandemonium to answer. Likely none of them even knew how to answer. Carefully Harry twisted backwards to make sure the bunk was securely bolted to the wall. It held firm, and he relaxed a bit. As long as he wasn't in any danger of falling…
But even so, there was no way he'd be able to get out of bed, what with the floor gone missing.
The man on Harry's left- Paul, Harry quickly recalled- huddled to the furthest end of the bed, his hand pressing against the cold wall as if he could cling to it for support. On Harry's right, Conrad was an ice sculpture, not even blinking as he stared into the abyss before him.
"How deep do you think it goes?" one of the men on the opposite side of the room pondered, his voice half marveling, half nervous.
He was met with a response from the tall man who had exchanged words with Damon- "Fuck, I can't see the bottom."
Harry inched forward to peer into the inky depths. If he squinted, he thought he could see something at the bottom- but there was such little light…
"How did they construct this?" he whispered, mostly to himself. It was incredible that he and the rest of the candidates should have spent their whole evening in this room without ever realizing that the floor was hollow.
"Why did they construct this?" Paul countered.
Harry snapped his head up to look at him."It... It's got to be a test of some sort."
Once he'd spoken the words, it seemed perfectly clear. This floor-less room must be the beginning of their training, sprung upon them unaware. Tension set in, everyone waiting with bated breath for something to happen. Then it was broken by the uncanny sound of laughter.
"Relax, mates, we're perfectly fine!" Damon chuckled from two beds away. "As long as none of you have got a sleepwalking habit, we're safe and sound as long as we remain in bed."
"But shouldn't we be doing something?" insisted the man on his right.
"Yeah, of course," Damon said, utterly blasé. "We should just go back to sleep and try to forget that this whole thing ever-"
His words were broken by the cry of one of the men on the opposite side of the room, who scrambled towards the other end of the bunk. "Fucking hell! It's going into the wall!"
As the words registered, Harry felt a jolt run through his bunk. He turned around and nearly gasped when he realized his bed was, ever so slowly, retracting into the wall. The pillow and blanket were pushed towards the foot of the bed as the mattress was swallowed whole.
Harry was on his feet in an instant, swaying uncertainly and doing his best to avoid looking down. "We have to get out of here!" The statement was met with resounding assent and more cries as each of the candidates' bunks were activated. At first Harry's gaze swung towards the door. If there was any way to clear the gap between it and the beds, maybe they would have a way of escape—
"The air vent!" All eyes immediately zeroed in on it, staring up at their last hope for salvation. It took no time before each candidate was on his feet. The man directly below the air vent hauled himself up onto the beams overhead and tugged at the vent's covering.
There was no time to lose. Harry reached out to the rafters, pushing himself up using the wall as support. Clinging to the beam with both arms and legs, he breathed a small sigh of relief as he watched his bed get devoured. Then that relief vanished as he spotted Conrad still crouched against the foot of the bed, stricken with terror. His bunk had already retreated halfway into the wall, moving at a faster rate than Harry's. Instead of trying to climb to the rafters, though, Conrad sat dumbstruck, waiting for the inevitable.
"Conrad!" Harry called out, inching over to him. He held out his hand, ignoring the sweat coating it and the black void below, as Conrad looked up with a start. "Take my hand!"
As quick as a shot, Conrad bounced to his feet, reaching out to Harry. After Conrad had grabbed hold of the beam with his other hand, Harry managed to pull Conrad up. For a moment they stayed in place, clutching the solid beam for dear life, and then Harry began shimmying towards the air vent. Ahead of him, the man managed to pull the cover aside. He tossed it away triumphantly and plunged into the vent, followed by a surge of eager candidates.
From above, it was evident to Harry that all of the beds were sinking into the wall at different speeds. He had been lucky to have enough time to escape; others were dangling from the rafters and looking on helplessly as their bunks were swallowed. On the flip side, a few remained poised on their beds, waiting for the precise moment to climb up. Harry was seized by the urge to help them, but he couldn't turn back now. The air vent was so close, so close-
But then he froze abruptly at a sudden sound, causing Conrad to bump into him. Craning his neck around, Harry's heart stopped cold. Paul perched at the very edge of his bunk, the one centimeter that hadn't yet disappeared. For a split second he teetered unstably, but then his last foothold gave out and he plunged into the darkness below. His startled, wordless shout echoed across the room- not a scream, nothing that suggested comprehensible terror, just the cry of a person who hadn't quite been expecting that.
To Harry, the sound was just as chilling.
"Move it!" Conrad hissed behind him, drawing Harry's attention back to the task at hand. He took a deep breath and crawled forward, not stopping again until he had reached the blissful escape of the air vent. But Paul's fall into the dark replayed itself in his head.
The vent clanked noisily as a myriad of shoulders and limbs fought for forward traction in the narrow crawlspace ahead. All Harry could feel was the smooth metal below him and around him, surrounding him like a robotic cocoon. It would almost have been entertaining, reliving a classic scene from an action film, if the need to escape hadn't been so pressing.
Then, without warning, the man in front of Harry tumbled out of the air vent, revealing the sickly pallor of light to him at last. His pace slowed as he approached the other end. Carefully he stopped and poked his head out of the gap, taking in his new surroundings. Immediately he caught sight of several of the candidates lying strewn about on the floor. Beyond them, the man who called himself Merlin and his intern- Ian, had that been the name?- looked on. Judging it safe to enter, Harry scooted forward and let himself drop, collapsing onto the padded surface below. Conrad tumbled down beside him a moment later.
Although the floor beneath him was as soft as a mattress, the drop still took some of the breath from Harry's lungs. Or perhaps that was the adrenaline catching up to him. He rolled onto his back and scoped out the room upside down. Merlin and Ian towered over him, wearing matching blank stares. Harry couldn't tell if they were impressed or disappointed with the results of the test. If that's what it was. He averted his eyes, unsettled by their silence.
One by one, the remaining candidates popped out of the air vent, with Damon bringing up the rear. He enthusiastically launched himself to the ground, his eyes shining. Almost immediately his grating laughter started up again. "That was wild! Wow!"
Still laughing weakly, he sat up, and Harry followed suit. Slowly the candidates struggled to their feet before Merlin and Ian.
"It's okay now…" Damon murmured, winding down from the excitement. "We're safe." Whether he was trying to reassure himself or the rest of the candidates, Harry was unsure.
"Yes, you're safe," Merlin's voice rang out, instantly shutting Damon up. "All nine of you standing in this room made it out alive, and in one piece. Congratulations on figuring out a viable escape route." He fell silent, and Harry waited. The image of Paul falling surfaced in his mind, and he held his breath. Surely his absence wasn't lost on the rest of the recruits…
"But-" Merlin said at last. His green eyes hardened, and his fists clenched together before he hid them behind his back.
"One of you did not make it out of the room. One of you is not 'okay now.'" Merlin's gaze lingered on Damon, a wordless reprimand. Then he nodded once to Ian. Quick as a flash, Ian left Merlin's side and traveled to the computer terminal on the right side of the room, above which an immense TV screen was mounted. A jolt went through Harry as he realized the view on the TV screen was that of the barracks, segmented into different angles as if taken from different cameras.
But I didn't SEE any cameras…
Turning his back on the candidates, Ian began typing at the keyboard. Onscreen, the footage of the barracks reversed, and Harry watched the candidates crawl backwards along the beams. He saw beds emerge from the walls, saw men climb back into them. Then Ian paused and let the footage run normally, and he found himself watching Paul's fall all over again, the wordless shout still raising the hairs on his arms.
The sight proved sobering for the rest of the candidates, who straightened up. Merlin's eyes burned into each of them.
"All of you have failed this test," he said, his voice struggling to suppress overwhelming emotion. "Thinking quickly in an intense situation is one thing. But teamwork is everything."
He held his stare for a few moments more before hanging his head- and Harry felt a flicker of indignation bubble up within him. How was it fair to claim that he had failed the test of teamwork when he'd helped Conrad into the rafters? He'd wanted to do the same for the others. At least he had noticed them. No matter his actions, shouldn't his intentions be worth something?
Without a second thought, Harry put up his hand. Though the rest of the candidates didn't move, Harry could feel them side-eyeing him. Merlin raised his head, staring at Harry with a mixture of incomprehension and irritation.
"Yes, Harry Hart?" he addressed Harry, his voice raw. Harry put his hand down and squared his shoulders, meeting Merlin's gaze.
"How can you write us off like that?" he said, barely managing to keep his voice level. "I helped one man escape, and I almost went back for the others. I'm sure many of us felt the same way! I'm sorry, but it doesn't seem fair that-"
"Enough." Merlin's forceful voice was a drill boring straight into Harry's brain. He shut up immediately and froze, trapped under Merlin's cold stare.
"I suppose you expect to get points for trying," Merlin declared scathingly. "Well, here at Kingsman, actions speak louder than thoughts. Either you act on the principle, or you don't."
He walked closer to Harry, stopping right in front of him so that Harry was forced to meet the serious depths of his eyes. Then he addressed his intern.
"Ian?"
Silently Ian hit a key, and the paused footage on screen sped up, racing until it had reached the current point in the recording.
As if by magic, the barracks had returned to normal. The floor was back in its place and the walls had regurgitated the bunks. From one look, Harry could almost believe that the test had never happened- but the images in his mind wouldn't let him forget it.
"You're dismissed," Merlin said, a touch of regret in his voice. "Sleep well."
As soon as the last of the candidates had filed out of the room, Noel trudged over to the terminal. Waving Ian aside, he sat down heavily in the chair and began closing out the surveillance program.
That was when Ian deemed it safe to ask, "Was he your candidate?"
Noel halted in his work and glanced up at Ian, cocking his head. "My candidate? No. Training a candidate myself could lead to a biased result."
Ian's brow furrowed- he'd figured that, but it just didn't add up. Had there been another agent he hadn't met?
"Forgive my confusion, but how do nine candidates equal eight agents?"
Noel's eyebrows jumped upwards, and he cracked a wide smile. "Aha, you've caught on quickly, Ian. During training, Arthur submits a candidate along with the rest of the agents."
Ah... But the satisfaction of understanding was short-lived. Ian gave the monitor a sidelong glance.
"Is he… What happened to his candidate? Did he fall to his death?"
"Not quite," Noel murmured. "If you'll come with me, I'll show you." He shut the terminal down and then pushed himself to his feet. Ian followed him to the door, puzzling over the enigmatic response.
At the very end of the corridor was a stairwell, which Noel slowly descended. Ian had to pace himself in order not to overtake him. He noted curiously that Noel was leaning to one side as he walked, favoring his right leg. But before Ian could offer his arm for support, they had reached the bottom of the stairs where Noel's step grew sure again, so he dismissed the thought.
Down the hall was a door in the exact same position as the barracks overhead. Noel unlocked the door and pushed it open, while Ian looked both ways down the hall, wondering what was going on.
The room that Noel revealed was pitch-black, until he threw a switch, blinding Ian with the light. When his vision cleared, Ian found himself staring at his own reflection. The room's walls were slanted, angling upwards from the cramped space at the bottom. All four were covered in mirrors. The floor was padded, just like the observation room overhead.
But what caught Ian's eye right away was the man standing in the center of the room. The same man who had fallen from his bunk during the test, now safe and sound.
"Paul," Noel said, approaching him. "Thank you so much for devoting your time to our program."
"Not a problem," Paul said cheerfully, closing the distance between them and offering his hand. "I consider it an honor, Merlin."
Noel gave a satisfied smile as they shook hands. "I'm glad to hear it." He waited for Paul to leave the room, and then turned to Ian, who was examining the walls in baffled amazement.
"So it was all a- a trick." Ian's words came out haltingly. "An illusion."
"Well, they don't call me Merlin for nothing," Noel said. "The danger was simulated, but its reaction most certainly was not." Quietly he stepped into place behind Ian's shoulder, so that Ian jolted when he turned and realized how close his uncle was standing.
"Things are hardly ever what they seem at Kingsman, Ian. You'll learn that soon enough."