Robin looked around for sensors, seeing none nearby. Maybe now they could relax —
Slade abruptly put out a hand to stop Robin. Robin was about to ask why they'd stopped, but
Slade seemed to be looking intently at the ground in front of him with such concentration that Robin knew better.
"Mines," Slade said.
Robin gasped, inspecting the ground in front of them and seeing that the floor looked different here, half a shade lighter than the ground behind them. He watched Slade leap onto the ground diagonally, avoiding all the mines before crossing to the other side and standing up.
"The floor is slick," Slade said.
Robin nodded and carefully took his first leap, almost sliding off his destined spot despite his wariness and Slade's warning. Heart pounding in his throat, Robin took another leap, and the same thing happened. How had Slade made it look so easy? What if Robin slipped and triggered a mine? What —
Robin's feet landed, and in that instant, Robin slid too far forward. His blood chilled colder than the suit's temperature drop as he heard a click underneath his feet. He looked over at Slade, terrified. "Slade," he whispered, "I don't—"
"You will not die," Slade said, already taking something out of his utility belt and tossing it to Robin. "Take out your bow staff and follow my instructions."
Robin, confused and glancing at the small bomb in his hand, nodded.
"I have given you an explosive disabler," Slade explained. "If you place it onto the mine you are now standing on, it will disable the mine."
"Then I can just—"
"However, it releases a compound similar to my frequency bombs, and if you are standing on the bomb when the disabler activates, you will be killed."
Robin swallowed, not understanding. How would he make it out of here alive? If he moved, the mine would go off. If he stayed, the disabler would tear him apart.
"Your bow staff will take your place," Slade said. "Activate its gravitational field then cross to my side. I will activate the disabler and disable all the bombs, and your bow staff will return to your hands. Is that understood?"
Robin's head swum at all this information, but he nodded nonetheless. He thought he understood . . . Taking the disabler and glancing at Slade to make sure he was doing all this correctly, Robin placed the bomb under his feet. He activated his staff and laid it down underneath himself as well. Once he heard the sudden increase of gravity of his bow staff, Robin looked at the mine field and carefully planned out his path.
"You only have ten seconds before the gravitational field of your staff will disappear and the mine will explode," Slade said. "Run."
Robin blinked, nearly beating himself up for forgetting such critical information. Now panicked, Robin crossed the rest of the mine maze at light speed, somehow able to avoid all other mines and join Slade on the other side. He turned, saw his bow staff begin to lift off the mine as it returned to his hand, then noticed Slade's pressing a trigger he held. The disabler deactivated the mine and the surrounding area now looked noticeably weaker, as though the next person to pass would simply fall through the floor and never stop falling.
"Continue."
Robin walked after Slade, still panting and thankful that he hadn't just gotten himself killed. The two continued onward, and Robin yawned slightly as they made their way further into the maze. What time was it? They'd left at midnight, so it was probably about one or two hundred hours by now, and —
"Take this," Slade said.
Robin blinked, looking at the dark green pill Slade held out to him. "What is it?"
Slade said nothing, and Robin begrudgingly took the pill and ate it. Almost instantly, Robin felt his tiredness vanish and be replaced by a level of concentration he hadn't known was possible to obtain. He nodded to Slade, and they kept walking.
"You know, this is kind of easy," Robin said some ten minutes later after no traps. "Why aren't there a hundred robots trying to stop us?"
"Knowing the correct route is essential to our success," Slade said. "Traps are only for those who become both lost and stuck in the maze, eventually being killed by their own stupidity."
Robin thought back to the blueprints of the maze that Slade had shown him right before they
left the compound. He opened his mouth to ask, then closed it, thinking better.
Slade walked down another passage, and when Robin looked left and right and saw that they were both dead ends, he turned around. Slade put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
"We've got to go back," Robin said. "It—"
But Slade, taking out a small gadget, placed it on the wall next to him and, placing his ear on the gadget itself, gently rapped against the metal with his knuckles. He did the same to the other side, then nodded. "On the contrary. That direction is, indeed, real, but the other direction is an
illusion."
"How did you know that?" Robin asked, confused.
Slade pulled the gadget he'd used off the wall, then indicated to its existence. "This increases the frequency of one's hearing. Walls can trick the eyes but not the ears."
Robin blinked, slightly awestruck by Slade's prowess. The pair traveled down the corridor with the fake wall at the end, and Robin, staring at the wall with all his might, would never have been able to figure out that it was solid unless Slade had directly told him so. Even when Slade walked right into the wall, Robin still expected Slade to be unable to continue. Only after
Slade's body phased through the hologram did Robin blink and follow him.
Now on the other side of the wall, Robin looked up at the blue sky above and almost laughed. Here it was, two hundred or so hours, and the sky above them showed midday. Why didn't the sky show a passage of time?
"Stars, unlike a clear sky, could be used as locaters," Slade said, and Robin jumped a bit at the man's unnerving ability to seemingly read his mind.
"But someone could just mark where he's been already," Robin said. "If a person brought enough food and water, they could get out by keeping track of where they'd already gone."
"Test your theory," Slade said.
Robin, thinking Slade was joking, looked up and was surprised to see that the man was serious. Taking out a small electrical disk of Slade's, Robin attached it to the side of the hedge and stood back. Half a minute he stood there watching it, and Robin was about to face Slade to prove his point when suddenly the hedge drew the weapon inside itself and Robin's marker disappeared. "Hey!" Robin shouted. Reacting quickly, he pressed his hands against where the weapon had been but felt nothing.
"The black level would not allow marking," Slade said.
"Then why don't we just get on top of the hedge? It'd be quicker that way," Robin said.
"Throw a weapon and test such a theory before you trust your body to it," Slade said.
Robin, shrugging, took one of Slade's batarangs and tossed it into the air. It reached just to the top of the hedge when it suddenly disintegrated from an invisible electrical field. Robin blinked, then stared. He glanced at Slade and swallowed, glad he hadn't climbed up to try it himself.
"Follow."
