Another hallway stood before them, and Robin wondered if they would ever get to the maze and legendary "testing" rooms that the black level was infamous for. Robin, inspecting the walls carefully, saw nothing. He was about to walk forward when Slade stopped him.
"This hallway contains heat sensors," Slade said, pointing to Robin what he'd missed on his first look down the hall.
Robin faltered. "Then we have to find another way. If it tracks our body heat, no amount of cloaking will—"
"We will proceed," Slade said.
Robin looked at Slade, surprised. Did the man know something he didn't? "How?"
"We will lower our core temperatures. Prepare yourself," Slade said, pressing a button on the waist of his suit and motioning for Robin to do the same.
At first, all the suit did was tingle and Robin was afraid that the technology was going to shock him again. Slowly, Robin began to feel cold. It wasn't that bad, and Robin didn't even feel like shivering. Suddenly, however, the temperature in his suit dropped drastically, and Robin heaved as his body reacted to the shock. The uniform was so frigid now that it felt as though the fabric were burning him, and Robin put a hand over his mouth to keep himself from crying out.
Finally, the temperature stopped its descent. Robin, unable to feel anything anymore, got to his feet and tested taking a step forward. He could still move at least, even if he couldn't feel.
"Proceed," Slade said, stepping into the hallway.
Robin watched the heat sensors on either side of the wall, but the sensors didn't move an inch as they walked by. Apparently, their core temperature had dropped enough to prevent the sensors from reacting. Robin's body dragged and his thoughts clouded over as they made it to the end of the hallway, and Robin slumped in the doorway of the next room, breathing slowly.
"Keep moving," Slade said, attempting to pull Robin to his feet.
Robin groaned and slipped his arm out of Slade's grasp. "Rest," he muttered. "Sleep."
Slade reached down, and Robin was aware that Slade had pressed the temperature control button on his waist. His suit was now extremely cold. It felt nice. Or at least, it did. Now the temperature was slowly rising, and Robin didn't like it. He tugged on the gloves of his suit then remembered they wouldn't come off. Maybe he could get used to the temperature change.
Abruptly, the temperature in Robin's suit shot up, and he felt Slade's hand over his mouth an instant before he began screaming in pain. His body felt as though it were on fire, and this fire was ten times worse than the pain he'd felt before. The agony was so intense that Robin wondered if he would pass out. Slowly, so slowly, the pain subsided. Slade took his hand away from Robin's mouth, and Robin sat up and took several shaky breaths.
"You could've made it — a little bit worse," Robin panted as he got to his feet, finally able to feel his fingers and toes again.
Slade looked at Robin a second longer before continuing on. Robin followed. They crossed through two more open doorways, then faced a door off to their left. Inspecting what was inside, Slade turned to Robin and seemed to smile. "The maze," Slade said, pushing the door open.
Robin felt as though he were coming down from an adrenaline rush. He staggered forward, barely able to stay upright as they entered into one of the most deadly puzzles of the black level. Once they entered, Robin saw what looked like a hedge extending into the distance, with openings and places where the path branched off every ten feet or so. Leaning down, Robin felt the walls and floor of the hedge with his fingertips, realizing that it was just cloaked steel. It was an illusion. Robin looked upward and saw no forms of orientation that he and Slade could use to track their progress. The hedge extended several feet up, and above their heads was a pure blue sky with no clouds.
Robin looked back at the entrance and considered going back. They couldn't make it through. Thousands of villains much better and smarter had tried but hadn't made it. Why would their passage be any different? The maze would either drive them mad or kill them due to its many hidden traps. There was also a story of, Robin grew sick at the thought, two villains making it all the way here only to have thirst drive them to . . . Robin closed his eyes, his breathing growing more and more unsteady the longer he thought about it. Would this be what happened to them? Would they really do such a thing to each other?
"Which path should we take?" Slade asked.
Robin opened his eyes. "W-what?" he asked.
"You studied the blueprints, did you not?"
Robin blinked. He'd studied the blueprints . . . well, not really. All he could remember was that the first part of the maze branched off into twenty different dead ends which had at least one trap down each corridor. Thinking harder, Robin tried to remember which path led onward, but he couldn't. Robin looked at Slade and shrugged.
"What is down the first corridor on our left?"
"A dead end," Robin said instantly. That, he remembered. "And robot that activates when you get to the end of the wall, turn around, and try to go the other way."
"The second on our left?"
Robin frowned. Wasn't it important to know where to go, not know where not to go? At this rate, they wouldn't cross the maze for a year yet. "An opening that branches off and leads to two dead ends along with a motion sensor that triggers the walls to close."
"The third on our right?"
Robin had to fight not to roll his eyes. Why was Slade asking him these questions? "An
invisible wall that's really a dead end and a floor that crumbles when you put your weight on it, giving way to an abyss."
Slade nodded and walked forward, taking his second right. Robin followed, annoyed that Slade continued to ask him pointless questions. Robin, however, didn't question the man's motives since he knew that concentration on the task at hand was more important than questioning someone who only spoke in —
"Trap," Slade said, motioning to the camouflaged light beams that stretched all the way to the ground save for about a foot of space between the last laser and the ground. Slade got down, and Robin did the same, and the pair army crawled to avoid the first section of sensors then jumped and twisted to avoid the rest.
"Which way?" Robin asked once they'd gotten past the first trap.
Slade looked left down a corridor, then right. Then he looked straight ahead. He nodded. "Straight."
Robin blinked. "But Slade, there's a wall there."
"Did you study the blueprints at all?"
Robin blushed, but he still didn't know if the maze was getting to Slade already. They were standing in front of a wall. Suddenly, Slade ran right at the wall and leaped, streamlining his body as though he were about to dive into water. Robin waited for the sickening collision, but he gasped when Slade's body went right through the center of the wall. "Slade, how did you—"
"Follow."
"How?" he asked, pounding on the wall itself and feeling the solid metal under his hands.
"Focus."
Robin, blinking hard, had to stand there for thirty seconds before he finally located a slight change in the wall's structure right near the center. He gasped; so it was a hologram! Part of the wall was fake! Taking a running start, Robin leapt as Slade had, and his body miraculously phased through the solid wall in front of him and out the other side. Robin rolled to his feet, stood next to Slade, and nodded. The two continued on, taking three more corridors without incident.
