with a thud. “The IP address for Geektacle? Too easy, Escape-Capades!”
“Arlo’s pop culture website,” Neela explained, without waiting for Persey to ask. “For gamers and puzzle solvers, sci-fi and comic book and fantasy fans. It’s like our happy place.” Her eyes followed Arlo as she disappeared through her door, which sealed itself behind her.
“Our?”
“I have an account and I peruse quite a bit.” Neela laughed uncomfortably. “Like, I’m kind of an Arlo fangirl, but don’t tell her. I mean, I’d die.”
“I won’t.” Especially since it would only increase Arlo’s ego.
“But I also like the content. Arlo posts a lot of puzzles, and there’s some healthy competition to solve them first. That’s my favorite part. Keeps me sharp.”
“Like the Megaminx?”
“Ha, yes! I don’t like to brag, but I can generally solve a level-eight puzzle box in under an hour, which is top ten percentile. Like last year when DaringDebunker posted specs to this one top secret puzzle that no one could solve and I was able to—”
“Five minutes.”
“Son of a Shatner!” Neela said, rated G even in a time of extreme stress. “We still need to figure out your door mechanism.”
Persey waved her off. “Oh, it’s over there.”
Neela tilted her head to the side. “You already found it?”
“Well, there’s only one cubicle left.”
“Good point! You need help?”
She didn’t want anyone to see what her special “thing” might be. Even (especially) Neela. “I’ll be okay. They don’t want us to fail this early, so I bet it’s pretty easy.”
“You sure?”
“Totally.”
“Okay,” Neela said, heading toward her door. “Here goes nothing!”
Persey waited until Neela had completely disappeared down the hallway before she entered the last cubicle. As soon as Shaun had mentioned that one of the cubicles was mostly empty, she knew it was meant for her.
With three minutes remaining, Persey stepped through the low wall into the barren space. Not even a standard-issue desktop computer and wheelie chair had been added, and all that stared back at her were the items that couldn’t be removed: the built-in L-shaped desk and an office telephone.
She picked up the handset, registering the old-fashioned dial tone coming through the speaker, and quickly typed in a phone number. She’d barely released the last digit when one final door in the wall swung open.
THE PADDED CORRIDOR ENDED WITH YET ANOTHER DOOR, which Persey pushed open, stepping into the chamber beyond. The moment she entered, the door swung closed and locked behind her.
To say that the room was dark was a total understatement. It was completely freaking black; not even a hint of the red lights from the hallway. Can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face kind of dark. Persey knew because she tried.
There’s no need to panic. Nothing to be afraid of. Focus on why you’re here.
The prize money. That was enough to calm her down.
She reached her hands to either side in an attempt to get a feeling, literally, for the room. Her palms steadied as they landed on smooth, hard walls just inches beyond her shoulders. So less a room and more a closet. Hands held up in front so she didn’t smack into anything, she took several tentative steps forward before she was stopped by the fourth wall.
In the darkness, she felt around for something that might denote the kind of challenge she was up against. A puzzle. A maze. Something visual or something tactile? No clue.
“Hello?” she said out loud, testing the acoustics. Her voice sounded dead and flat, which meant the closet was probably soundproof, or heavily insulated at the very least. She could barely hear the sound of her own breath as she struggled (failed) to keep her heart rate at bay.
She knew the darkness and the muted quality of the room were tactics meant to instill panic, to inflame her desperate need to escape, which would inevitably lead to her inability to think clearly. She’d read about how escape room designers used things like claustrophobia, peer pressure, and misdirection to make their challenges more difficult, and at Escape-Capades, they had that shit down. Persey could feel her heart thumping in her chest, her breaths coming shorter and shorter, which would eventually lead to light-headedness, and it took every ounce of her emotional strength not to turn back toward the door and pound on it with her fists, demanding to be released.
The lights will come on soon. They’ll have to. Stay calm. Be patient. Everyone else is in the same boat.
Maybe, but Persey seriously doubted if super-cool Mackenzie or tough-as-nails Arlo were freaking out. She closed her eyes—wondering if