Author's Note: Back at it again at the Nonary Game,
(Current path: 5)
(Suggested listening: Cabin)
"Delta, what's wrong?" Robin asked, quickly.
"There's… something disgusting on this box…" Delta answered, his face sinking as expected from someone who'd just touched something unfortunate.
"It kinda smells weird," Boxcars agreed. "Like some kinda weird glue. Do you think it spells something?"
"I already told you, I can't read anything in it," Delta replied. "Gross black gunk on a rough black platform. We can't read it." By the look of his face, he wasn't soon going to move past his disgust, but there was nothing Robin could do to help him at the time. Thus, he looked past the boxes and to the shorter wall opposite the divider.
"Why's there this barrier here?" he asked, knocking on the plastic-like wall that stood at about the height of his waist.
"My guess is drainage," Leo said, peering over. "There's little slots in the bottom, and the floor seems to be slightly angled over here. The floor behind this wall is lower than the rest of the room, too. I doubt you could reach the ground if you climbed up on it." As Robin peered over the wall he could dimly see that the bottom of the drainage area was perhaps a foot lower than the rest of the floor, and with the low clearance between the wall and the barrier, he could only fit his arm down.
"But I see something lying there at the bottom," he sighed. "It looks like some kind of ball. And there's a bucket there, also." The bucket's handles were cinched together, keeping them upright and thus much higher off the ground than the ball.
"Well, that "ball" is probably a speed bag, and it's definitely out of reach," Leo replied. "But we might be in more luck with that bucket." He held up a deformed coat hanger, which he said had been hung on the barrier right beside him. "Let's see if I can get the hook around the handles…" Indeed, he could, and as the bucket came up over the barrier, a smile graced his face.
"Nice work," Robin said, moving to pop off the lid. "It's about a quarter of the way full of sand." The sand was noticeably yellower than real beach sand, he noticed. He thought then that he'd very much like to be on a real beach instead of in a Nonary Game, and he wondered if he could make it out of the building alive to make that wish come true.
"You alright, Topaz?" Leo asked. "Your face just got all… sad."
"...Oh, it's nothing," Robin replied. "But hey, we've got the sand now. We can probably fill up that sandbag thing we just found." There was a large opening in one side of the bag, and Robin carefully scooped sand into it until the bag was filled. "Let's take it to the hole…" As he spoke, though, sand began to leak out of the side.
"There's no way it's gonna keep its shape like that," Boxcars said. "Don't you have any way to close up that hole?"
"Right, the athletic tape," Robin said, tapping his palm against his forehead. Swiftly, he resupplied the bag with enough sand to fill its shape, then unrolled a decent stretch of tape over the opening. "Guess that's what we needed the scissors for, too," he mumbled, snipping the roll free from the used portion. Deciding that was probably the last use they'd have for the items, he set them down in the corner and out of the way.
"Alright, let's put that shit in there," Boxcars said, leading the way to the triangular indentation. The sandbag sank in it snugly, and when it was entirely within the hole, they heard a click. The source of the noise was a bench beside them, which apparently had a latch they hadn't noticed. They only saw it then because it had opened, revealing the shape of a five-pointed star that had been drawn inside it.
"What do you think that means?" Robin asked.
"Not sure," Boxcars said with a grunt. "Maybe you should just write that one down for now."
"...I should have figured you'd say that," Robin mumbled.
"Say something, buddy?"
"Not a thing," Robin replied, then whispering, "just like you, basically."
"I may not look it, but I can kick ass five ways, my dude."
"..."
"H-hey, I'll let you off the hook this time," Boxcars finished. "Just…" He circled back over to the plyo boxes then, so Robin headed to the platforms.
"Usually there'd be a barbell on each of these, but this gamemaster has apparently done away with them," Delta noticed. "The majority of them are entirely uninteresting, but two of them have some numbers written on them." He pointed to the two noteworthy platforms. On one was painted an angle symbol and a 5; the other was labeled "1011011." "It's a good thing those ones have the little serifs, or else we couldn't be sure they're read this way." Robin simply nodded, taking down the information in his notebook.
"It looks like these racks are somewhat more interesting," Robin said, crossing over to the nearest one.
"Yeah, they're pretty standard fare for any gym, really," Leo said. "You can adjust the height of these hooks where the bar rests, so you could use this for either benching or squatting at any height."
"Unless you're eight feet tall," Delta said, peering up to the top of the nearest rack.
"Any reasonable height," Leo sighed. "The thing that's kind of weird is these bumpers." He pointed to the side of the rack, which was lined with pegs that held weight plates. "You'd expect to find bumpers over by the platforms, since they're all the same diameter and are softer, so you can use them for cleans and deadlifts and shit. But you wouldn't use them to bench or anything, unless you really didn't have anything else."
Robin did find it odd that all the weight plates were the same diameter. "Hey, what are the weights of those…"
"Bumpers," Leo finished. "You've got 10 pounds, 25 pounds, 35, and 45, it looks like."
"These are about the same diameter as those holes on the other wall," Robin said.
"Oh yeah; what did those clues we found say?" Leo asked.
Robin peered into his notebook. "We've got LAT 45 and BICEP 10. But… we haven't found anything about the other one."
"So I guess we might as well wait to move these bumpers until we find out which weight we need for the calf machine." Giving the weights another few seconds of a wistful glance, he moved down the row of squat racks. "Oh, look at this bar," he said, waving Robin over.
"What's with that little hooked loop part?" Robin asked.
"This is a chin-up bar," Leo answered, stopping cold. After a few seconds, he seemed to remember that this wasn't enough information for someone like Robin, so he continued. "The loop is bent here so that it can hook on top of a doorway. This is usually so you can do chin-ups at home, so I don't know why it'd be in a gym like this with all these squat racks."
"We must need it for this puzzle, then," Robin answered.
"Awesome," Leo said. "I'll hold onto it, then." It seemed to Robin that Leo had spent the entire time they'd been in the gym wanting to work out, so holding a piece of equipment for a prolonged amount of time was probably a sufficiently close backup. Leo ran his thumb over the metal absentmindedly, and Robin couldn't help wondering what the man was thinking.
There seemed to be nothing suspicious with the next rack over, but Robin could see Delta moving for the next one beside it. There was a cylindrical pad around the bar, the type Robin could remember using in gym class to keep the metal from hurting his neck. As Robin approached, Delta removed the pad and inspected it. He must have found nothing, since he tossed it to the wall.
The clue that had been hiding, though, was on the bar, as Robin quickly noticed. In small, white letters, the bar read "101=5." He turned to Delta, asking, "What do you suppose this means?"
"Come on, Topaz," Delta replied with a condescending grin. "Surely you've seen something like this before." The widening of Robin's eyes told Delta to not waste any more time on hints, and he decided to go ahead and explain. "The number 5 is only written with the 5 digit in decimal, or any base that has six or more digits. But if you only have two digits, then…"
(Suggested listening: Riddle and Puzzle)
"Oh, binary!" Robin replied. "So 101 in binary is the same as 5 in decimal."
"Or other bases of at least six," Delta corrected, still offering a nod as a statement that Robin was close enough.
"Six equals three plus three," a voice in Robin's mind whispered. He could barely make it out, and he quickly became quite sure he'd imagined it.
Alas, it had been enough to spark his brain. "Hey, Delta, there's something I wanted to ask you about."
"Go for it," Delta invited.
"Our chat in the locker rooms, about numerology. You just reminded me of it, but…" He cleared his throat once, preparing his words. "You said… After Leo said that the pills were probably made up, you said it reminded you of… yourself?"
"Oh, right. Well, I said it reminded me of delta, but I wasn't talking about myself. I forgot to circle back to that, did I?" Delta started. "Anyway, I can mention it now. Are you perhaps familiar with an English physicist named Paul Dirac?"
Robin had hoped when Delta said "English" that he, an Englishman himself, would be familiar, but he was hardly versed in physics. "I'm sure I've heard the name, but I can't say I know anything about him," he confessed.
Delta nodded, as though this was to be expected of most people. "He did some interesting work in physics, which is what he's most known for, but an extension of one of his ideas into mathematics is named after him. It's called the Dirac delta function."
"Is that part of what inspired you to choose the nickname?" Robin asked.
"Admittedly not," Delta replied. "The function has nothing to do with the number four, at least not more than any other number. You understand what a function is, right? It's a way of outputting a number given any number input, or, equivalently in this case, a plot on a graph of what the outputs look like. The thing about the Dirac delta function is that it's equal to zero almost everywhere."
"Almost everywhere?" The descriptor sounded pretty hand-wavy to Robin, but he figured it was one of those science things that was less vague than it sounded.
Delta responded simply with a nod, inhaling deeply to speak again. "There is only one x value where the function is not equal to zero. When x equals zero, the function is, well, higher. The exact value isn't exactly definable by standard mathematics, but the function is defined in such a way that its integral over the entire number line is one."
"That's the area under the curve, right?" Robin asked. "If there's only one point where it's nonzero, how can its integral be one?"
"You can think of it as being infinitely high, I suppose," Delta answered. "So the entire positive y axis is under the function, and all that infinite length can be boiled down into an area of one. It doesn't really matter; this isn't even a real function."
"What's it used for, then?"
Delta shrugged. "Mostly physics applications. You can use it to represent a point charge or a perfect impulse, even though in real life those kind of things have a very slight yet real size. Of course, mathematicians are interested in it as well. It's kind of funny, when you think about it. It's infinitely tall at one point, so it's also infinitessimally thin. Shows the duality of hyperreal numbers."
"Hyperreal numbers…" Robin repeated. "That's just infinite and infinitesimal stuff, right?"
"Basically," Delta said, waving his hand as if to show that was the limit of his knowledge.
"I see. So that leaves me with two questions," Robin followed. "Firstly, you stopped yourself in the locker rooms from saying this to talk about numerology. How, exactly, does this follow that?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Delta answered. Robin gave him a blank stare, clearly implying that is was not. "Don't overthink it. It's math, Topaz."
"Is… that all?"
"Math relevant to the Nonary Game, I mean. Numerology is relevant to the digital root nonsense, and Dirac is relevant to me. I meant to not make the conversation about me, hence the numerology. Besides, it just… came to my mind."
Delta's explanation was a bit shady, in Robin's opinion, but he didn't see any use pressing the issue further. "...Alright. Second, how did what Leo said remind you of this?"
"Ah, right. That's a bit more interesting. Based on how mathematicians define a function, the delta isn't one, technically."
"What is it?" Leo asked. Apparently, his attention had been drawn when his name was mentioned only a moment ago.
Delta shrugged. "I guess it's just a relation. The thing is, it's impossible for a function that only has a nonzero value at one point to have a nonzero integral. But it's interesting how we still call it a function. It's kind of like how we call jellyfish, well, jellyfish, even though they're not fish." This fact was news to Robin as well, but he didn't want to derail Delta by asking too many tangential questions.
"It's to make it easier, isn't it?" Leo answered. "We all pretend that it's a function because that's a lot less work than saying, "This is a relation," or whatever, because no one knows what the hell it really is. Anyway… there's some things that people just wouldn't get."
"No sense being exact when inexactness is more palatable, right?" Delta laughed.
"It's kinda like how we all picked nicknames, huh," Robin mused. "It's easier to be someone we're not when we're in danger, in case we have to make some choices that are difficult." He hadn't meant to move the conversation in a dark direction, but he almost felt he had to.
"Hey," Leo retorted, almost defensively. "What kind of difficult choices do you think we're gonna be making anyway?"
"You remember what our kidnapper said, don't you?" Delta answered. "There are many things in this game that can kill you. He probably is thinking someone will be taking him up on that offer." The group fell silent then.
"Once this game is over…" Robin started. "Whatever happens, I doubt we'll all be proud of what we did."
"I guess we can count on Leo to be the most pure, huh," Delta said. "I will admit, I have plenty to hide, as I'm sure Topaz here does. But don't think I'm suspicious. If you pay enough attention to my nickname, I'm sure you'll see I'm a person for whom it is very fitting."
Robin had been expecting for Leo to respond with something contrary, but he simply gave an "Mhm." He couldn't tell, but he thought he saw a hint of dejection in Leo's eyes.
(Suggested listening: Cabin)
"Right," Boxcars said, sidling up between Delta and Robin. "You sure are full of trivia. Come on, let's solve some shit."
"After you," Delta responded, holding out his hand in the direction of the closest item, the free weights.
Boxcars' face warmed inexplicably, as though he was proud to see Delta maintaining his assertiveness. "Alright," he answered, rubbing his chin and crossing to the tall rack of colored weights. "Have we found any clues about this yet?"
"Not a one," Robin answered. "At least, unless our kidnapper has some crazy ideas about what a clue is."
"That may be," Boxcars said. "Then what about the adjustable weight? Anyone seen any numbers floating around?"
"Wait," Robin interjected, looking at his notebook. "How many plates are there?"
"Uh, six. And then the handle, of course," Boxcars answered.
Delta and Robin made eye contact as the realization came to him. "It's binary, then. Just like on the bar. 1011011."
"Want to be a little more specific?"
"Oh, sorry, uh… make it so that the attached plates are the 2 pound, the 8, the 16, and the 64," Robin recited, tapping the point of the pencil to the paper with each number.
He heard a series of little clicks and a grumble before finally Boxcars spoke. "Alright, now what?"
Becoming certain nothing had changed around them in the room, Robin replied: "Lift it, I guess."
"...That's 91 pounds. I can only get one hand on the thing."
"Come on," Leo chided, moving to do it for him. "There. Something hiding?" Indeed, where the plates had been resting was a simple message, reading "CALF 25." "That's our third message about the bumpers, then." Leo set the dumbbell back down, just beside the rack.
"Alright, let's get them where they belong," Delta said, retrieving the 25 pound plate. Naturally, Leo made for the 45 pounder, apparently leaving Robin with the lightest.
"Don't forget; yours goes in front of the bicep machine," Boxcars told him.
"...Right." As the one with the notebook, Robin was well aware, but he figured he'd let Boxcars off the hook for that oversight.
Within a minute, all the indentations were finally filled. As soon as the plate Robin placed sank all the way into the floor, the center spot, where the hole was, lit up in a faint red light. In the center of the indent, a small plus sign was illuminated. "Another symbol, huh," he mused. "Better write that one down." He added it beside the star he'd drawn, tapping at them a few times absentmindedly.
"Hey, we're not done with these benches," Leo called, inexplicably already back on the other side of the room. "Come look at this one; it has a mirror sewn into it."
"Fitting that it's all the way across from the wall with the mirror, huh," Boxcars followed. "Maybe it's supposed to reflect something off of it."
"Something from where?" Robin asked.
Leo peered at the surface of the bench, lying perfectly flat. "The ceiling. There's all sorts of words written on it. But they all look backwards if you're looking at this mirror."
"I bet they look forwards if you reflect them off this mirror and onto the one on the wall across the room," Boxcars grinned. "But uh… which level do we set it to?"
"Topaz, remember the platforms? Did they say anything about an angle?" Delta asked.
"I wish you wouldn't say that like that," Robin chided. "I'm not a child. But yeah, there was an angle sign and a 5 on one of the platforms."
"Say no more," Leo answered. Squatting beside the bench, he pulled up on it, clacking it into position five, or so Robin assumed. "Boxcars, can you go to that wall and see what's reflected into it?"
Boxcars angled his head slightly as he glanced at the mirror. "It's pretty small from here, but it looks like it says… SQUARE. That sound right?"
"It's going in the notebook," Robin assured, drawing a simple square beside the plus sign he'd just added. "Alright, so that leaves one last bench. What's so exciting about this one?"
"Nothing that weird, really," Leo sighed. "Just some chalk. The weird thing is that it's in this huge five-gallon bucket."
"Think our kidnapper wants us to write something?" Delta chuckled.
"Maybe if he gave us calcium carbonate. This stuff is magnesium carbonate, though. It doesn't dissolve in water, so it's used on lifters' hands to keep them from sweating and losing grip on the bar." Leo picked up a small rock of it, rubbing it across one hand and then clapping a few times.
"A lot of it seems to have broken down into white powder," Robin noticed. He picked up the lid to the bucket, which had been resting on the bench beside it. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"What? Oh…" Delta answered. "Yes, I'm sure we could use it for that."