Nonary Game: Resonance
As Robin's attention refocused in the present, he recalled Basilio standing immediately before him. The other man must have had no idea why Robin's face had flushed with an aura of dread, and he knew quite well there'd be no way to explain what he'd just seen. However, it seemed Basilio was off in a world of his own, an inquisitive expression on his face.
After a few seconds, Basilio came to as well, noticing Robin staring at him. "Ah, forgive me, I was just… thinking about our arrangement."
"R-right," Robin said, hoping the other man would assume that he'd been doing the same.
"Well, we had better go back downstairs and meet up with the others. I have a feeling that we will be wanting to move forward as soon as possible." Basilio refused to make eye contact as he circled Robin, heading down the stairwell in quiet thought.
Robin respectfully kept himself silent as well. The flashes he'd experienced almost felt like memories, events he'd physically seen and perhaps felt, but they lacked a temporal location in his life. Perhaps it's something I've seen in another life… The questionable things that had played for him had little explanation, and he was sure that his idea was not the craziest explanation that could be made for them.
Alas, one thing in particular bugged him. He was quite sure the rules sheet that had been read at the start of the game said there was no time limit, but if his visions were to be trusted, the building was set to collapse after the end of the Nonary Game. Could our kidnapper have lied to us? There was no reason to trust someone whose only direct interaction with Robin had been to drug him, but then again nothing else that had been said was untrue. Perhaps the situation at Door [9] would grow serious at the hands of someone other than the kidnapper. Whatever the case, Robin steeled himself in that he had to try to do whatever was in his power to protect the other participants, whether or not they made it through the last numbered door.
As they reached the bottom of the stairwell, Basilio cleared his throat. "Topaz, I will leave the decision up to you, if you are willing to make it. Please feel free to inform Leo and Marcus if you come to the same conclusion that I have." Robin nodded once, accepting the responsibility but doing his best to not reveal his intentions. Basilio gave an equivalent nod in return, and they walked back down the hallway to see what Boxcars and Leo had to say.
"Did you guys find anything exciting?" Boxcars asked, having been seated against the wall just beyond the stairwell to floor 1. His tone read like he was a bit chuffed to have been kept in suspense, but he didn't seem to be upset further.
"You could say that," Robin answered. "We found two of the numbered doors, [3] and [8]."
"Oh, really?" Leo asked, looking genuinely enthused.
"Door [3] was actually up on the floor above us. But it's the only thing up there, at least that we could reach from the stairwell at the end of the hall." Robin quickly explained the route to Door [8] as well, in the event either of the others had been planning to ask.
"Then I bet you like what we show you," Boxcars followed. With a grunt of effort, he brought himself back onto his feet, and he and Leo lead the way into the area that they had explored.
"We found two things as well," Leo stated without turning around. "The first is just down here, down the same hallway." Robin briefly wondered how he hadn't noticed the others in what should have been a fairly direct line of sight, but figured they might have done their search while he was distracted with Door [8]. "Well, it's not exactly the same. There's kind of a weird partition in the middle, but we can circle it no problem. It must have been an aesthetic choice. Not one that I get, though."
"That explains that," Robin whispered to himself, although his initial assumption was correct - this hallway was colinear with the one he and Basilio had just checked. However, upon entering into this wing, he could immediately tell what would be coming a short way down.
"Door [7]," Basilio noted.
"Good eye," Boxcars quipped. "But yeah, that means we've found all three of them this round."
"It also means," Leo added, "that the next one we find has gotta be Door [9]." His words sent two feelings across Robin's torso. The first was a golden yellow of excitement at the idea of being almost free, but the second was a cyan even colder than the digit on his wrist, telling him the time of his decision was only inching its way closer and closer to the present.
Basilio, however, seemed in good spirits. Robin was sure he was thinking something along the lines of how it was always better to have escape in sight than to be waiting for it, even if it meant potentially denying it of someone else. "What's the other thing?" Basilio asked.
"It's back this way, in the other corner," Leo responded. With a wave of his arm, he beckoned the others to follow. They went down the shorter hallway perpendicular to the one they'd just left, then turning right to go down yet another hall. This one was cut off fairly quickly, much like the hall just behind the stairwell the teams from Doors [1] and [6] had come up. Unfortunately, the metal wall that stood in their way seemed quite solid, and Robin figured it unlikely to move at any point in the near future.
"How exactly is this exciting?" Basilio asked.
"Check this out," Leo answered, approaching a classroom door that was near the wall. He pressed down on the handle, then pulled his hand back, allowing it to jerk back up with that telltale clank of metal.
"It moves," Robin said.
"Reminded of that door back on floor 0, huh?" Boxcars suggested. "The one other handle that our captor hasn't jammed. 'Course, there's no telling how exactly we're supposed to get in this one. Or the other one, for that matter, since we haven't found out how to get all the way back downstairs."
"Maybe we'll find something after this next set of numbered doors," Robin suggested. "A way to get back down to every floor. That would make the most sense, right? Since we probably need all those keys and stuff to escape the whole building instead of just specific rooms."
The other three seemed to consider the possibility. "In that case, it's probably best we go ahead and get the others back up here," Boxcars said. "I guess me and Leo will go down to see if we can get Cody and them, if you two want to go the other way to get Ian and Marcus?"
"Sure. Hopefully they're done being alone for now," Robin answered. He made a mental note to try and talk to Marcus alone, to check on how he was doing after his episode before the last set of doors. In fact, now that he thought about it, it was possible that Marcus had been experiencing the same thing he was - some sort of influx of confusing information. He wasn't sure how to get that past Basilio and Ian, but he figured he'd come up with some sort of plan.
"Hey, Leo, do you remember this?" Boxcars said from several feet away. He pointed to the ground on the other side of the doors to the stairwell, right in front of the blockade.
"No," Leo said, approaching it. Their curiosity sparked, Robin and Basilio approached as well. It seemed that the normal tile flooring that had been ubiquitous to all of the hallways in the school was missing. In its place was a slight divot with a large metal circle, perhaps four feet in diameter. It was made entirely of wedges of metal, and lying near the center was a tiny, reflective object.
"What the hell is this…" Boxcars mumbled, inching closer to the circle.
"It does look kind of cheap," Leo replied. "Maybe they had to rip up some tile and ran out of time to replace it."
"This is really weird," Robin warned. "We probably shouldn't mess with it."
"Yeah, good point," Boxcars said. "I vote we just grab whatever that is and go. It kind of looks like a coin or something, right?" He didn't need to wait for an answer, as his analysis seemed to be correct. "Maybe it's something else we need for the game, like one of those damn keys." Thus, he stepped onto the panels.
When they didn't even budge, Robin found himself exhaling audibly. Boxcars even gave a bit of a chuckle. "Looks like it's all good," he said, then kneeling down to grab the coin. As soon as he lifted it, the four heard a click. "Wha-"
Before Boxcars could finish his question, the wedges of the circle folded downward, and he tumbled into the floor.
Leo leapt forward to try and grab him, but he did not make it in time. Only a second after Boxcars slipped through, the wedges folded upwards again, blocking off his path. "Fuck!" Leo grunted, dropping to his knees and whacking the panel in frustration.
"Hang on," Robin said, nudging Leo out of the way as he too knelt down, being sure to keep his entire body over the solid ground. He leaned over to where the coin had been, assuming it had been resting on some kind of sensor, and pressed with one finger. Nothing happened. He then retreated the finger, wondering if the sensor was activated by a loss of pressure. Again, his efforts were fruitless. "Shit, we can't open it again," he groaned, falling to sit back in surrender.
"What the hell do we do now?" Basilio asked.
"We'd better go let everyone else know quickly," Robin answered. "Basilio, go find Delta, Lucky, and Cody, and tell them what happened. Look around to see if you can find any signs of where Boxcars might have fallen. Leo, let's go get Ian and Marcus. Same deal."
"On it," Basilio agreed, jumping into the stairwell without further prompting.
"No, hold it," Leo said. "We're not taking any chances here by sending everyone back downstairs. You need to stay up here and make sure no one tries to get through any of the numbered doors while the rest of us are distracted."
"Who would do that? No one else knows about them but Basilio and Boxcars."
Leo looked like he wanted to grab Robin by the shoulders and shake him. "Think about it! Basilio could easily tell the others whatever the hell he wants, maybe he lies to them and says the rest of us have all snuck through a door, so he gets them all to follow him through another one. No. Not on my watch."
"That doesn't even make sense," Robin retorted.
"Damn it, Topaz," Leo grunted. "Just stay up here." He started to run toward the stairwell that would lead him back to the foyer, but Robin followed.
"Give me a good excuse, and I'll stay," Robin challenged.
Leo sucked in his cheeks. "You need to keep track of everyone who comes back upstairs and when. I've been having a shitty feeling in my stomach that's telling me not to trust any of the others, and it's just gotten worse." Leo had little else to offer than a stare that was superficially angry but also, perhaps, terrified. "Just… stay out of the way and act ignorant." With that last cryptic message, he ran down the stairwell alone.
As much as Leo's plan seemed to be a safe bet to avoid being tricked, Robin was too full of anxious energy to sit around and wait for everyone to come back upstairs. He hoped it would not be too long, though, so he decided to stay nearby.
After about thirty seconds passed, he found his energy bubbling him into motion. Stay cool, you're fine, he thought. He began to jog, hiking up his knees and shaking his ankles when lifted to burn off extra energy. Since he was never particularly good at staying still, he decided to head towards Door [7], which he figured was a decently-sized space for running back and forth.
Time ticked on agonizingly, and with no surefire way to know how long he had been waiting, Robin began to reconsider his choice to stay put. However, before too long…
"Topaz!" Cody's voice came from the end of the hall, and the two ran towards each other. Moments later, he could see Marcus behind him as well. "How long have you been here?"
"I don't know at this point," Robin sighed. "Did Basilio and Leo find you two? I thought you went to two separate places."
"We did," Cody explained, "but we both came back upstairs on our own. I didn't see Basilio or Leo. Or anyone, for that matter. I got so nervous because I hadn't seen anyone since we all split up, so I ran back up here to try and find you all."
"Me too," Marcus added, his voice barely a decibel above a whisper. "Something's happened, hasn't it?"
"Marcus, Leo went down to get you and Ian a little while ago," Robin said, his anxiety bubbling in his lungs. "You didn't see him?"
"The last time I saw Ian, he was going into the main office, but this was right after we first split up. I didn't see Leo at all," Marcus answered. Robin realized at this point that he was shivering, but he highly doubted it was from the temperature.
"The best thing we can do is wait for the others to get back upstairs, and then we can all probably relax," Robin said, although it was admittedly wishful thinking. He hadn't quite figured out how to casually let everyone else know that Boxcars had been swallowed up by a trap.
As the three left the stretch of hallway that lead to Door [7], they suddenly saw Delta right around the curve. "Delta!" Cody announced.
"Well, there you three are," Delta said. "Cody, we never caught up to you downstairs. Where were you?"
"Wait, who's "we"?" Cody asked.
"I went downstairs with Lucky," Delta continued. "But they had to stop and use the restroom, after which I went back to the pool. Come to think of it, I haven't seen them either."
Robin explained to him as well about Basilio and Leo going to find them, but Delta assured him he hadn't seen Basilio at all. "Okay, this is too ridiculous to be true," Robin said. "Nine of us have been running around on two floors, and somehow you all managed to split up from each other? And no one has seen anyone else?" He was beginning to think that Leo's suspicions were, to some extent, well-founded.
"Wait a minute," Marcus said, hardly audible over the thumping of Robin's blood in his ears. "You mentioned Leo and Basilio, but… where's Boxcars?"
Ah. Shit, Robin thought. "Ehh…" The word did a better job of expelling air than it did of offering information, so he started again. "He… we found this coin on the ground down one of the hallways. The ground it was on was some kind of trap, though, and he… he fell into it."
"What?" Marcus asked, his eyebrows shooting to the top of his face. "He fell into a trap? Where did it go?"
"I-I don't know!" Robin answered. "He fell into the floor! Basilio went to go look for him on his way to get everyone else, m-maybe that's why he's not back yet."
"This is unreal," Cody mumbled, bringing his left hand up to his forehead.
"When our kidnapper said that this game would be dangerous, he failed to mention anything about traps," Delta snapped.
"We've g-got to g-go look for him," Marcus said, putting incredible effort into sounding commanding instead of petrified. It wasn't very effective.
"No, we can't keep being split apart, it's too dangerous," Cody countered. "We're all too hyped up on adrenaline to think clearly, so we should just… wait for everyone else to get back up here and come up with a new plan then."
"What if they don't come up here?" Delta said under his breath. Robin wondered if he was the only one that heard him.
They anxiously shuffled back into the hallway between the two stairwells, at wit's end for a better plan. Shortly after, however, Leo returned, wringing his hands. Delta, who seemed to be the least stricken with fear of the group, greeted him weakly, but before Leo could reply, the crew heard from behind them the crack of a door whacking into a brick wall.
Robin spun around in a split second, instantly locking eyes with Basilio. His face looked pale, and it seemed like he'd been liberally sprayed with perspiration. Any words that the other five had been planning to say dissolved when they saw him walk towards them, completely alone.
"Where's…" Robin started, but the suffocating aura of Basilio's mood kept him from finishing.
Basilio shook his head slowly, his mouth squeezing into a grim line. "It looks like Delta and Cody found you without any trouble." His eyes were fixated on the ground somewhere in the distance.
"Did you find any sign of Boxcars?" Marcus asked.
Basilio shook his head again, albeit quicker. "No, I could not find the tube that he fell into. But, Lucky…"
"Where are they?" Leo asked, a pained undertone striping his voice.
"Lucky is in the machine shop," Basilio answered. "They… have been murdered."
With those words, it became clear that not everyone would make it out of the Nonary Game alive. Lucky, someone that Robin considered crafty and skeptical enough to keep from being tricked, was now dead. If they had fallen victim, then he was painfully sure that others would as well. Someone had killed Lucky. Odds were, they would kill again.