us, it might mean that there is—”
“Spread out!” Arlo barked, interrupting Neela. “Each of these cubicles must have a puzzle that is personal to one of us. Solve it, and we open the door.”
“Or,” Wes countered, “everyone can just find their own shit.”
Arlo pointed to the clock, which continued its steady countdown. “We don’t really have time for that. We need to work together.”
“Why do you have such a hard-on for this collaboration shit?” Wes asked. He stepped (too) close to her. Close enough that it was either meant as a come-on or a threat. “Is it because you won’t have anyone to boss around if we’re all working on our own?”
“It’s because Leah told us to. Those are the rules.”
“Your rules. Not mine.”
Shaun laughed, a calculated approximation of a laugh, which of course made it creepy and unnerving, and it was so mechanical that Persey almost believed Kevin’s android joke. “Inability to follow the rules. In an escape room competition. That’s funny.”
Persey was pretty (definitely) sure it wasn’t.
“Is that what got you kicked out of Yale?” Kevin asked. “Rule breaking?”
“I dropped out. Big difference.”
Kevin folded his arms across his chest. “How much do you want to bet that old Wes here dropped out just seconds before they were about to boot his ass?”
Wes clenched his fists, his laid-back-stoner vibe abandoned. “You think I’d want to come back to this shithole town?”
Kevin grinned at him, obviously pleased with himself. “Touchy, touchy. Must’ve hit pretty close to the mark.”
“Fuck you,” Wes muttered. But despite his protests, Wes’s sunken shoulders and faltering eyes revealed the truth in Kevin’s theory.
“Okay, kids,” Kevin said, turning away from the defeated Wes. “My door is open, and I think we all know I’m not going to be of any use to you here, so…see ya!” With another salute, more casual this time, he stepped through the door into the darkness.
“Ten minutes.”
“Everybody report in,” Arlo ordered even though they’d barely had five seconds’ worth of search time. It was a good thing she ran a website for a living: dealing with breathing, emoting humans in the flesh clearly wasn’t her strong suit.
Shaun pointed to the two nearest cubicles. “That one is almost entirely empty, and the only out-of-place items in this work domicile are a poker chip and a toy slot machine.”
“Any clues on either?” Arlo asked.
Shaun held the chip up to the light. “Lotus Hotel and Casino,” he read. “Las Vegas, Nevada.”
Same casino as the receipts in the drawer Persey had been searching. Coincidence? Probably not. She was about to bring it up when Wes stormed into the cubicle and snatched the chip from Shaun-bot’s hand. “Gimme that.”
Arlo approached the desk. “You gonna tell us how you’re related to the Lotus Hotel, or shall we guess?”
But Wes ignored her, jaw clenched, body suddenly tense and awkward. Whatever the connection he had to that casino, it wasn’t a pleasant one.
Wes turned the poker chip over in his hands a few times while he stared fixedly at the miniature replica of the one-armed bandit mounted on the desktop beside an inkjet printer. It stood about a foot high, and unlike the modern electronic equivalents that populated other Las Vegas casinos, this one was old-school: the arm attached to its side looked as if it might move, the three reels on its face sported classic symbols like cherries, a lemon, and the number seven, and a large opening in the side could fit a full-size poker chip.
“There’s a coin slot in the side, you know,” Arlo said, prompting him. “That’s probably where—”
“I know how to work a fucking slot machine,” Wes said. Then, with a glance at the ticking clock and an expression that Persey could only describe as constipated, he dropped the poker chip into the coin slot on the machine.
The chip thunked against the metal interior as it fell to the bottom, then another door opened on the far wall.
“Finally,” Wes said as he ambled across the room. “Anything is better than being stuck in here with you assholes. Out.”
Persey was pretty (positively) sure no one was sorry to see him go.
The remaining contestants spread out again, digging through items in the six remaining cubicles. While Neela busied herself with the drawers, Persey noticed that Mackenzie, Arlo, and Shaun kept glancing in their direction. Keeping an eye on the competition.
“I found this,” Neela said, holding up an old-fashioned brass key, the kind that Victorian housekeepers would have dangling from their pockets by a large chain, used for