Q the omnipotent night fury: *blushes* Thanks :) Information...well, that comes from a lot of trawling through other websites or, in the case of Face and the comment about apricots, an SAS survival manual ;)

I was right. There wasn't room for me and Decker to go through the door at the same time without getting wedged in it. I managed to get free and through the door first, partly because of the practice I've had at this kind of thing with Murdock (breaking him out the VA doesn't always go smoothly) partly because I don't think Decker really wanted to be first through that door, and partly, of course, because I stamped on his foot.

I don't know what I was expecting. Swinging Pendulums of Doom, maybe? The ceiling falling on my head? A huge pit full of knives?

It turned out to be a restroom. A filthy restroom – the amount of mold on the ceiling and creeping down the walls was frightening in itself – but still just a restroom. Maybe this one was more of a puzzle than a booby trap. I mean, the freezer full of all those limbs hadn't been dangerousin the same way as the barbwire or that corridor. Seriously disturbing, sure, but not dangerous.

I looked around for Nadia and saw her pressed against the wall, eyes wide as she stared down at the body on the floor. Well, kinda on the floor. It was propped in a sitting position with its back against one of the sinks, facing the door, and I wasn't sure if the person had died like that or if someone had repositioned it for maximum effect.

"Nadia? Are you okay?"

She nodded, although she sure didn't look okay; her face was white and she was gulping in air a little too fast.

"Hey!" I caught hold of her shoulders and gave her a gentle shake, waiting until she focused fully on me before speaking again. "Are you okay?"

Another, firmer nod. "Y-yes. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...it was just a shock."

That I could well believe. This person hadn't died quickly; the body was no more than a mass of severe burns, some right down to the flesh beneath.

Decker, who had followed me in, looked down at the body. "Looks like he tried to swim. I guess he made it too, before the shock and the burns killed him in here."

I frowned. "Who is he?"

The colonel stared at me. "Is?"

"You know what I mean!"

Decker shook his head. "I've really no idea, Peck. What do you want us to do, hold a séance and ask him? What difference does it make, anyway?"

I straightened up and glared at him. "It makes a difference because if we knew who he was, we could try and remember if he'd gone missing and if there had been any ransom notes or anything, and that might tell us who's behind all this!"

He stared at me, then said in a quieter voice, "You know who's behind all this, Peck, just as well as I do. I thought it might be Smith until I found that damn corridor. I hate to admit it, but this whole set up isn't his style."

That wasn't quite true; sneaking into your home and booby-trapping it while you're asleep to check your levels of alertness when you wake up is very much Hannibal's style, but his traps are never fatal, and very rarely painful except to your ego. For the record, I still say the tomatoes were overkill. Does that guy have any idea how hard it is to get tomato juice out of a shirt? And who's crazy enough to try and turn fruit and vegetables into ballistic projectiles, anyway?

Well, yeah, okay, obviously Hannibal. I just don't think it's something we're likely to run into from the bad guys.

Nadia was looking from one of us to the other, then she said, "Well, I don't. Who's doing this?"

I frowned. "You don't know?"

"I just said that, didn't I? Who is it?"

It seemed incredible that it could have passed her by, but then, I guess not many fifteen year olds bother to read the newspapers. I glanced at Decker.

"Well, you brought it up, Colonel. You explain it to her. I'm going to make use of the facilities."

Decker's jaw dropped. "You're going to what?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Problem?"

"Peck, every room we've been in so far has had some kind of booby trap."

"Mm-hm. And how exactly does one go about booby-trapping a toilet stall?"

"Your making use of the facilities, Lieutenant, might easily interfere with getting us out of this room. Did you ever stop to think about that?"

I stared at him, wondering if his mind had been knocked off-kilter. I mean, he was already pretty unbalanced; it probably wouldn't take much to tip him over the edge.

"What are you saying, Decker? That we gotta flush the toilets in a certain order to open the door?" Shaking my head in a despairing way (or at least in a way that I meant to be despairing) I walked into the stall and shut the door. I did think about letting out my best blood-curdling scream of terror (I have quite a good one, if I say so myself) but reluctantly suppressed the urge. If it had been just me and Decker, I might have considered it, but it wasn't fair to play a trick like that on Nadia.

I finished my business, then reached out and flushed. Nothing bad happened to me, and so I walked out and washed my hands. I splashed some of that water on my face as well; I was still having the odd dizzy spell from the gas, maybe the water would help that.

I glanced at Decker over my shoulder, noticing that he didn't seem to be suffering any ill effects.

"Hey Decker? How long did it take you to recover from the gas?"

He looked surprised, or as surprised as he ever gets. "What gas?"

"The gas in that barbwire room."

"There was no gas in that room, Peck. At least, not while I was in there."

I stared at him, not wanting to believe but having no choice. Decker was a soldier; he'd know those smells as well as I did, if not better.

"Well, there was while we were in there! How'd you miss it?"

Decker shrugged. "I've no idea. Best guess is that the gas works on some kind of timer and I got through the room and safely out before the timer kicked in. Like the doors."

I blinked at him. "The doors? You think the doors are on a timer?"

"I think if someone followed me closely enough to slam doors behind me, I'd know they were there."

I wasn't going to argue with that. After my time in Vietnam and everything that followed, I was good at knowing if someone was coming after me too. All veterans are, and Decker not only had Vietnam but Korea on his score card.

"Maybe. Maybe both. How is a door supposed to know how many of us there are or that we've all gone through it? Okay, we can't get back through this door—" I jerked my thumb over my shoulder— "but how did it know that one of us didn't stay behind to open it if it slammed? And you didn't smell anything in that barbwire room? Not even a kind of fruity smell?"

He shook his head. "No. Nothing."

"Weird." I frowned. "But...well, you were right. You and me being here can't be coincidence. Maybe he wants to see if we'll kill each other before one of his nasty little traps does the job for us."

Decker looked at me levelly. "Then why put us in here separately? Why not put us both in that starting room together?"

Wonderful. Another great theory torpedoed. "Maybe he thought you'd wait."

"I guess he didn't know me very well, then."

"Well, no. If he knew you very well, like as a friend, then all he'd have to do would be to call you and ask you to come over and watch the game and then hit you as soon as you arrived." My frown deepened. "Alright. Let me see if I've got this straight. You were hit on the head and when you woke up you were in the room with that booby-trapped corridor. You sat on the desk and used it to carry you through that corridor without getting sliced to pieces. Then I'm assuming you went into the freezer room with all the bodies. You emptied the freezer and climbed down. You then went past the timber slicer." I didn't need to ask if it had been unoccupied. Decker may be crazy, he may be ruthless, but he's not essentially bad,and I knew for a fact that he would no more have left Nadia strapped to that machine than I would. "You opened the next door and climbed over all those barbwire fences without being gassed, then found yourself in the room we've just left, where you were stuck until the door opened. You dragged me and Nadia into that room, the door slammed shut behind us and now here we are. Am I right?"

"More or less."

"Okay. Well, I don't know about you, but I vote we don't give him the satisfaction of seeing us tear each other to pieces. I think surviving's going to be hard enough without having to be on guard from each other as well. You agree?"

A tight pause, then Decker nodded once.

"Good. Great." I stuck out my hand. "Shake on it?"

He looked at me, lip curled. "Don't push your luck, Peck."

I dropped my hand again rather hurriedly. "Right. Sure. So. Any thoughts on getting through the door?"

Decker shrugged. "I've no idea, Lieutenant. Do we even know it's locked? The other doors into various deathtraps haven't been."

There was a pause as we all considered this, then I gestured Decker toward the door. I'd planned to deliver my best smug look when it turned out to be locked, and was consequently disgusted when the handle turned easily in his hand and the door opened. Not wanting to have to see Decker's best smug look (and I was sure he was wearing one; guy never could resist a good gloat) I turned away, caught sight of my reflection and groaned.

Oh god. When was the last time I'd looked this bad? My hair was a complete mess, there was a slightly wild look in my eye and my face – most of my torso and arms, in fact – was covered in small shallow cuts from those damn barbwire fences.

"Oh boy." I finger combed my hair rapidly, trying to get it into some sort of order.

"Peck!" Decker hissed at me. "Move it! We don't have time for you to hang around preening!"

I barely heard him, my mind more focused on the cuts on my face. "Oh man. Please tell me those aren't going to scar."

Catching something else in the mirror, I frowned and leaned in to have a closer look, just as Decker gripped me under one arm and yanked me toward the door, and very nearly off my feet as well. "Come on!"

I guess it was for the best. This place was definitely getting to me; for a moment when I'd looked in the mirror, I was sure I'd seen a fourth person standing a few feet behind me.

Okay...I know this one was kinda short, but I figured Face deserved a breather ;) Come next week, they're in for it again (just in time for Decker to display a surprising new talent =P) Until then, hope you enjoyed this and if you read, please review!