kind of random-ass amount is that?”
Persey stared at the flag, trying to wrap her head around that huge a sum of money, when a sound caught her attention. A whir of a motor. But when Persey glanced around, she noticed with a sigh of relief that none of the four walls were closing in on them.
Then an odd glint in the corner of her vision made her look up.
Gleaming in the darkness two stories above their heads, Persey could see the pointed ends of the spikes slowly descending upon them.
“GUYS,” PERSEY SAID, HEAD TILTED BACK. SHE COULDN’T TEAR her eyes away from the ceiling. “We’re in trouble.”
“And that’s news, how?” Mackenzie stepped forward away from the wall to get a better look. As she did, the weight distribution of the floor changed, and her corner was pushed farther toward the ceiling.
“Fuck!” Kevin cried, ducking. “You think they’d come up with something more original. Dudes, you’ve done spikes to death.”
Persey groaned. His humor was literally the worst.
The roof wasn’t close enough yet to prove immediately dangerous, but Persey recognized the dilemma right away. Unless their weight was evenly distributed, or they were all gathered at the dead center of the room, one side of the floor would be depressed while the other raised toward the murderous spikes.
Mackenzie froze, arms wide as if trying to keep her balance, then slowly scooted back until the floor was even again. “I thought we were done with those!”
“Thinking was your first mistake,” Riot said.
“Okay, kids, we must be missing something.” Kevin carefully stood upright again, hand still over his head for protection. “Everybody look around.”
Persey’s attention drifted to the number on the wall. 263,681,285.
Was that right?
“Neela,” Persey said, hardly daring to move as she spoke lest the floor might careen upward out of control. “Is that the same number that came up originally?”
Neela tilted her head to the side, lips pursed. “No.” Then she closed her eyes. “Two six three, five five zero, one nine eight.”
Kevin held out a thumbs-up. “Photographic memory for the win.”
“Did anyone see it change?” Mackenzie asked.
“No, but…” Riot’s voice trailed off. “Brace yourselves. I want to try something.”
Persey crouched as Riot took a few tentative steps forward. That moment, the weight balance in the room changed, shifting the floor back toward the exit. The force of gravity pulled on the scattered books, pulling them down toward the dipped corner, and as everything shifted, the numbers on the readout changed as well. The pound amount shot up, accelerating as the floor angle became more precipitous, and stopped when Riot froze, balancing with the floor at a thirty-degree angle.
“So the numbers are important to opening the door, I’m guessing,” he said. “But how?”
“Seems like a lot of money,” Kevin said. He leaned to his left, and the tally went up seven pounds. “Mack, what’s the exchange rate?”
She turned her back on him. “Don’t call me Mack.”
Kevin snorted. “An hour ago, you would have let me call you whatever I wanted.”
“Oh my God!” Neela cried, throwing her hands up in the air. “Is this really the time and place for that? You can lick your ego wounds later; just tell us the freakity frack exchange rate!”
It was the closest Neela had come to losing her shit, and even “freakity frack” seemed practically like a swear word coming out of her mouth. Mackenzie looked startled by the outburst and dropped her snideness for a moment.
“Seventy-five cents to the dollar,” she said.
“Thank you.” Then Neela closed her eyes again, lips working silently. “So almost three hundred and fifty-one million dollars.”
Kevin whistled. “That’d buy you a lot of escape room tickets.”
“Or a lot of tea services,” Riot added.
Persey looked around at the tables, all of which had been set for tea. Tea for four people. Because there were only supposed to be four of them left. Four survivors.
“I wonder…”
“What is it?” Kevin said, watching her closely.
“I don’t know.”
“We’re about to get skewered from above, which means we don’t have time for coyness.” His eyes narrowed. “You’ve got an idea.”
“Okay.” Persey’s eyes drifted to the nearest table. “There are four tables, and four of us should have survived Recess. Maybe everyone is supposed sit at a different table.”
Riot nodded. “Makes sense.”
Persey pointed to the center. “Neela, stand right in the middle. At the…whatever it’s called.”
“The fulcrum. Right.”
The floor tilted precariously while everyone took the nearest chair. Using the oscillations of the floor, Neela found the central balance point and tried to position herself above it without adding