Hello again! I'm finally on Christmas break, and I've finished all my Christmas shopping and wrapping, so that's all out of the way. All I need to do now is clean and baby proof the house (my two year old cousin is coming to visit), and when I'm not doing that, I'll probably be writing.
Chapter seven: The Final Clue
I opened the orange door and stepped inside. I sighed with relief when it moved upwards. The speakers crackled to life, "congratulations, Sarah. But you should know that was a warm up created by one of my less able minded subordinates; the other riddles will be much more difficult to solve."
Oh good, for a minute I thought you'd gone soft. I thought.
"The rules are the same as before; if you get the answer correct the elevator will take you to the sixtieth floor, if not, well…you've been warned." The speakers crackled and went dead.
The doors opened. I found myself in a very similar hallway, except this time there were six vaults, and seven elevators, color coded green, yellow, purple, white, orange and blue. I noticed two steel doors in that room; curious as to where they lead I opened one, and found myself staring into an empty elevator shaft! I shrieked and jumped away from the gaping hole in front of me, heart pounding furiously. In my mind's eye I could see the smirk forming on Nigma's face, my cheeks flushed red; note to self, the steel doors lead nowhere. Here's how it looked from where I was standing;
G_YRPW_OB
I went to the first vault and opened the door, nothing fancy this time, just four steel walls and a flat screen television; as I toyed with the idea that his "less able-minded subordinate" was the Mad Hatter or some other rogue with a creative flair, the riddle appeared on the screen.
A donkey behind another donkey
I'm behind that second donkey
But there is a whole nation behind me
It is a murder you can describe in a word.
What am I?
I furrowed my brow; he wasn't lying about these riddles being more difficult. Two donkeys, a nation… I paced back and forth, well aware that I was wasting valuable time. "Donkey…what's another word meaning donkey?" I muttered, burro, mule...ass? My eyes lit up "that's it!" Two donkeys, or two asses, with a nation behind "me", or "I" and was a word meaning murder; Ass-ass-I-nation.
"An assassination!" I shouted. The screen blinked once and words appeared across it;
The correct door is not next to a white door.
I nodded my head, "noted."
The next few riddles were not important, as I answered them correctly and received my clues as a reward. Only the last riddle is important. I entered the final vault, by this point I had collected four more clues;
The correct door is more than one space away from the orange door
The correct elevator doesn't have an orange door
The correct door is not cool colored
The correct door is next to a door that leads nowhere
The last riddle is where I would slip up. The room was again blank, nothing out of the ordinary in it at all, in a word, boring. The last riddle flashed on the television screen;
With pointed fangs it sits in wait,
With piercing force its doles out fate,
Over bloodless victims proclaiming its might,
Eternally joining in a single bite.
What am I?
What? I thought…bloodless victims? I didn't understand, my mind was completely blank, I had utterly no idea. "Um…a sewing machine?" I answered, unsure of myself. New words flashed across the screen. I guess some sewing machines have clamps that look a little like fangs. The screen read;
The correct door is no more than two spaces to either the right or the left of the white door
That was all of them, now all I needed to do is decide which door was the correct one. I left the vault and backed up so that I could see all of the doors in the room.
G_YRPW_OB
I considered my clues carefully.
The correct door is more than one space away from the orange door
That eliminated only blue, the door to its left lead nowhere except to an empty elevator shaft, so blue was off the cards.
The correct door is not next to a white door
This eliminated purple, the door to its right lead to an empty elevator shaft.
The correct elevator doesn't have an orange door
That one spoke for itself.
The correct door is not cool colored
I thought about the color wheel from art class when I was younger. Green, blue and purple were all cool colors, so the answer wasn't any of those.
The correct door is next to a door that leads nowhere
That one eliminated only red, it would have been a more useful clue to have had earlier
And then there was that last clue.
The correct door is no more than two spaces to either the right or the left of the white door
Hang on a second! I thought. The doors that fit that criterion were orange, blue, red or purple which had all been eliminated. I had gotten the last riddle wrong, and was paying the price for it.
Without the last clue, I had to choose between the yellow and white doors as neither had been eliminated. I looked at the two doors and considered them for a very long twenty seconds, and picked the yellow one.
I stepped inside, praying that I hadn't chosen the wrong door, my knees felt weak, the elevator didn't move, it whirred and hummed, thinking about it, and finally moved upwards. I sighed with relief and dropped to my knees.
"Wrong answer, you dolt!" Shouted an angry voice through the speaker, I was just happy I hadn't been slingshot into the basement. "Enlighten me, oh intelligent one." I mocked, breathing in and out deeply, "Don't test your luck, Valens!" He snapped "the answer was a stapler!"
"Oh," I said, standing up, that made sense, bloodless victims, a single bite, pointed fangs; I got it.
"But," he sighed, "I suppose dumb luck isn't really cheating." Ding, the elevator reached the sixtieth floor. I stepped out; there was only one vault, vault 1-60. Happy it was finally over, or so I thought. I opened the door to the vault and walked inside. There was nothing inside apart from a sticky-note stuck to the back wall, I walked over and pulled it from the wall, there were only five words on it;
Hold on to your breakfast.
"Huh?" The vault seemed to lurch downwards, "what?" I shouted, "I thought he said I chose the right elevator!"
"Who says you didn't?" Mused a voice over another speaker, "3…2…1…" The floor beneath me opened, and before I knew it I was free-falling down an elevator shaft. Down…down…down, screaming as loud as I could. It felt like a very long fall, before long something white and square came into focus below me, I got closer and finally hit it, it was big and soft. It was two or three mattresses stacked on top of each other; so he hadn't planned to kill me, but falling from that high had still hurt. I rolled off the mattresses and brushed myself off. I looked up and gasped, I was in a small room with viewing screens attached to the walls, and two big galoots sat watching the screens intently. In the middle of the room was Edward Nigma, sitting in a black office chair with a switchbox in his left hand; in front of him was a table, and a shorter, empty chair. Behind him was Peabody, gagged and strapped to a chair with various plugs and wires running all over it. He kicked and struggled futilely.
"Hello Sarah, so glad you could join us." The Riddler said, pleasantly, but with a smug overtone, he gestured to the chair in front of him. "Sit down," it wasn't a friendly suggestion.
I sat down in the chair, I understood why he had made it so much lower than his; it gave him the dominant position. "Congratulations, you made it; and with three minutes to spare too" he said, checking his watch, "though if you had picked the white door it wouldn't have taken you so long."
"Your lair is in the basement; are you telling me that if I had taken the wrong elevator I would have ended up right here!?" I asked,
His lips twitched in lieu of a reply. "Before I just let you two go, I have one more riddle for you; no random guessing this time." I nodded,
He took a deep breath;
Once upon a time, in the Kingdom of Atreus, a king lived with his loyal servant. After service of about 18 years, the king became ill and was told that he was going to die. One day, the king called his servant and told him he would grant him a wish. It could be any wish but just one. The king gave him one day to think about it.
The servant became very happy and went to his mother for discussion about the wish. His mother was blind and she asked her son to wish for her eye-sight to come back. Then the servant went to his wife. She became very excited and asked him to wish for a son as they were childless for many years. After that, the servant went to his father who wanted to be rich; he asked his son to wish for lots of money.
The next day, the servant went to the king and made one wish through which all the three (mother, father, wife) got what they wanted. What did the servant wish for?
I felt my face pale. I had no idea, I thought about it for what felt like a long time, Peabody struggled and yelled through the gag, but I couldn't tell what he was saying. Nigma checked his watch impatiently "may I remind you that you only have one minute left before he dies?"
A bead of sweat rolled down my left temple, "um…uh…"
"Thirty seconds."
"Uh…"
Zing! Something whizzed past the side of my face, and cut through the power cord to Peabody's electric chair, it was useless now. Nigma followed my gaze, focusing on the small, sharp object embedded in what was left of the wire.
"Bat" snarled Nigma, thud, a black shadow hit the ground at the back of the room; I could barely make out the shape of a pair of eyes squinting in the dim light. "It's the Bat!" One of the men shouted, they each grabbed a gun from their side and fired it at Batman, who jumped out of the way and could no longer be seen. Nigma grabbed me the wrist and roughly dragged me to my feet, "don't try anything funny." He dragged me through a door at the back and into an alley; despite the fact that he wasn't physically imposing he had a strong grip. I didn't know where he planned to go, but was forced to follow him. Suddenly a figure dropped in front of us, I gave a surprised yelp. "Let her go, Nigma." Growled Batman, his voice sent a chill up my spine, Nigma pulled a knife out of his pocket and placed it just in front of my neck "take one more step and she dies." My eyes were wide with fear and my face was drenched with sweat; I was terrified.
"I don't think so" said another voice. The click, click of guns being prepped filled the room and other people stepped into focus, their blue uniforms identified them as police officers. Nigma looked around, and realized he'd lost. He dropped the knife to the floor and raised his hands above his head. Two police officers rushed towards me, leading me away from my kidnapper, another took out a pair of handcuffs and read him his Miranda rights. It was over.
I was lead through a door onto the moonlit streets of Gotham, I blinked several times as even the faint glow of the moon seemed very bright; I hadn't realized how dark it was in there. The police officers led me to an ambulance, apart from bandaging up the gash on my leg; all they did was give me a blanket for the shock.
"Sarah!" A voice shouted. I was instantly swept into a crushing embrace; it was Vikki. "I heard what happened, are you okay?!"
"I'm fine, I'm fine." I sobbed, but I was anything but fine. Tears rolled down my face from fear and shock, she cried with me. News cameras snapped in all directions as the Riddler was led out of his hideout. They tried to snap a photo of Vikki and I, but Vikki chased them off.
"Miss Valens" someone muttered. I turned to see a female police officer staring down at me. "My name is Officer Reagan, are you alright?"
What a stupid question, I thought, but I didn't say anything.
"I realize this isn't a good time, but I'm going to need to ask you some questions regarding your kidnapping."
Vikki went ballistic, "she's just been kidnapped, you bitch! She's in shock, and all you can think about is asking her some questions!? You have Nigma in custody what more do you need to know!?"
"We need some answers to questions regarding the circumstances of her kidnapping; Miss Valens, if you would please come to the station at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon and answer some questions?"
I nodded, "okay."
Vikki looked at me, "come on, let's go home."