Dirge Danorum
Chapter 7
"Is this going to kill us?"
"I don't think so."
"Can't you try to sound a little more confident?"
"The explosion is meant to kill people in the room, but they don't want to level the building – not until the game's over. And they can't anyway, I disabled those charges."
"Will the wall really protect us?"
"Protect us, no – but it will redirect the blast away from us. A bit."
"How do we set it off?"
"All that talk of Die Hard and you have to ask?"
I frowned. "I don't follow."
"Shoot it. I'm out of bullets."
"I don't think he does that in Die Hard."
"It's still an action cinema trope."
"Whatever. It's a good thing it isn't C4, or this wouldn't work." I raised Lunch Box and took aim. "I'm not made of bullets, you know." I fired. Not my finest moment.
I'm not even going to tell you about it. I don't want to. Ears ringing, we picked ourselves up, coughing and brushing off dust. In retrospect, I'm absolutely certain we could've found a better way to deal with that situation.
"I'll tell my wife about this someday," Ever gasped. "And she'll just shake her head."
"I know how you feel. Venge? Venge." He was still in one piece.
"Gentlemen, I propose we tell no one about this. To do so would be remiss in our duty to perpetuate the myth that men are not idiots."
"Right," I said hoarsely, combing debris from my hair.
"Oh, but don't count team Black and White out just yet!" Stan was shouting, sounding very pleased that we'd survived. Well, that was nice of him. It sounded like things were starting to get hype.
The hole in the wall was impressive. "Ready?"
I looked at Ever, and he looked back. "What?" he said.
We went through. Stan must've been controlling the lights, because they came on as soon as we entered. Stan was announcing Room Three for us, but apparently Velvet and Grigor were still on Room Two. That didn't sound good, but what was ahead of me had my full attention. These guys sure knew how to make rooms that grabbed you.
The wall was gone. There was a gap, and darkness, then a dim doorway. After making the customary checks, Ever and I advanced to the edge. We had our flashlights, but if we'd been there as the game intended, we'd have had no way to know how far down it went. In was more than two stories; our lights didn't reach the bottom. We'd only come up one flight of stairs, which meant that it bottomed out in some kind of sublevel. In any case, it was deep enough that we didn't want to fall. The height probably wouldn't be enough to kill, but I was sure there was something down there to make sure.
The darkness extended in either direction, and smooth concrete had been put in around the doorways. We couldn't try to climb around.
The only way to clear this gap was a blind jump. There was no elaborate machinery, just the jump, and the doorway on the far side.
"Subtle," Ever observed, sounding vaguely approving.
"What is wrong with you, man?"
He turned to me, and abruptly I wasn't looking at the room anymore. I was seeing a nice, but not lavish hotel room. The Biker was there, and so was Ever. They were dressed in civilian clothes. The Biker was dressed, well, like a biker – but more like a real American one. And Ever was wearing a very handsome suit. And sitting in a wheelchair. The Biker had just asked almost the exact same question I had. Ever looked up and smiled.
"Why, Frank – whatever do you mean?" he asked.
Then I was back in the room. I blinked several times, refocusing on Ever, who was looking at me curiously.
"Whatever do you mean?" he asked.
"Nothing," I said, shaking my head. What had that been about? "What do you think of this?" I was too shaken to admonish him for trolling.
"Obviously we're meant to jump across. It's made clear to us that the landing is safe – so that leaves only the jump." He pointed his light up. "And no trap there, either. It may be a bluff – there may be no danger at all. We would finally work ourselves up and jump across, and landing safely, we would feel relieved – and that was where the other shoe would drop. That could be the case."
"Or there might be a trap right here."
"I suspect there is. But I do like this one. Very Kafka. Kafkaesque, as you Americans would say."
"I'm not technically American."
"Oh, do forgive me."
"I am," Venge said.
"Right. Let's put ourselves in the shoes of our captors."
There was a dull thud elsewhere in the building, ahead.
"Oho!" Stan burst out. "That's a game changer – the odds shift again! Bet accordingly now, folks!"
I grimaced. "How?"
"If we wanted to lay a trap here, how would we do it?"
"Pressure plate on the landing."
"But that's unavoidable."
"I guess."
"Whatever they have here, it must be possible for us to avoid it, at least in theory." He glanced back at Venge. "It may also be intended to capitalize on whatever harm we've incurred before. Like acid burns."
"How?"
"I'm not sure yet." Ever took off his empty canteen and let it hang from its strap. He went to the edge and swung it out into the dark. Nothing happened. He held out his hand to me, and I took it, bracing him as he leaned out to swing it again. I didn't see what happened, but I heard the canteen go clanging into the depths.
"Well then," he said, after he'd stepped back, swallowing. "How charming."
"What happened?"
He held up the strap. "I think there's a wire."
"A wire that could cut through that?"
"Yes."
"Why can't we see it?"
"Because it's not framed in the light. It's there." He pointed. "In the dark."
"If we tried to jump across, we'd be cut in half."
"If we jumped carelessly, yes. But we can clear it easily, now that we know it's there. It just wouldn't be fun to do if we were, say, covered in acid burns."
"Right. So who goes first?"
"I do. I have the best idea of where it is. You'll have to follow me. Can you make it?" This was directed at Venge.
He considered the gap. He was probably a little weakened, but he nodded. "So we're like diving?" he said.
"Something like that." Ever patted himself down, then stepped back, focusing on a spot in the darkness that I couldn't see. I knew he couldn't see the wire, but he knew it was there, and like he said, he had the best idea of where it was. I had to grudgingly admit he had some nerve.
I watched him carefully as he jumped, though I really wanted to close my eyes. I didn't know this guy, but I didn't want to see him get sliced in half. If you want to know the truth, I felt like I'd seen enough bad things happen to people. I wanted to see something good for a change. But what were the odds of that in the Zone?
Ever hit, rolled, and came to his feet, immediately crouching. After a long moment, he turned back. "Looks clear."
"Looks clear like, like Vin Diesel saying it looks clear – or does it really look clear?"
"What the devil are you on about?"
"Nothing. I'm next," I told Venge, and stepped up to the edge. Well, I was as ready for this as I'd ever be. I wondered if I'd even have the guts to do this if my right hand wasn't the way it was, influencing me, eating away at my fear.
I made the jump without difficulty. Venge made it too. He was pretty tough for a little guy. And it's not like I'm a big guy. But at least I'm guy-sized.
Ever was already checking out the next door, and Venge was right there with him. I was a little surprised at his eagerness, but I shouldn't have been. He wanted out of here even more than the rest of us did. Who knew what he'd gone through?
I turned and looked over my shoulder, feeling my right hand on pins and needles. I couldn't see the wire, but I could feel it. There was another death that I'd avoided, one of dozens. For the first time in a long time, seven days, I no longer wondered why.
There's calm in having all the answers. Learning why Velvet had walked away from her life, turning to the Ukraine – that had killed some of the restlessness in me, just as other recent revelations had. But calm isn't the same as peace.
The death of uncertainty is the birth of something else altogether. I stared at where I knew the wire was for another moment, then turned and started down the corridor to join Ever and Venge. None of this changed anything. I knew what was happening. I just wished I didn't.