Chapter 1

The first thing they noticed, even before pushing the door open, was that the lights of the stairwell dimmed to half-power, and then toggled between normal brightness and half-power every second. During every transition, there was also a brief but distinct horn sound. Turning back to the last escalator flight, Kathy and Matt were amazed to see that the stairs had stopped moving...

"Don't even think about it, Matt. We could never climb 200 miles of stairs, even under the best of conditions. And these flashing lights and horns have the distinct urgency of an evacuation warning..."

"My gosh, Kathy! Look at the top of the stairs! Let's get out of here!"

Slowly cascading down the stairs was a deep black ink, reflecting no light at all, even in the flashing lights. Kathy and Matt quickly pushed open the door and went through, closing the door behind them. They found themselves in a hexagonal tube, about six feet per side, fortunately oriented with a flat floor. The flashing lights and horn sound were still present, and Matt and Kathy began to run down the tube. They exited after a minute of running, entering the corner of a large cubical room. Turning around, they watched the tube's hexagonal aperture smoothly shrink to nothing, leaving a smooth wall in its place. The horn sound and flashing lights were no longer present.

"Well" said Kathy, looking around. "After 12 days of gray, I guess it's nice to see a little color, and some open space. Get a load of the height of this ceiling! This whole room looks like a perfect cube!"

Kathy and Matt were standing in the corner of large cubical room, about 45 feet on each side, providing over 2000 sq ft of floor space. The room was moderately lit, with a cream color ceiling, floor, and three walls. The fourth wall opposite them was a light orange color. Halfway between each corner, along the center of each of the four walls, was a closed dark-brown door. In the center of the room was a gold spiral staircase, extending both up and down. Otherwise, the room was empty.

"Well, not quite what I was expecting, Kathy. Coming into an empty cube. Actually, I take that back, I don't know what I was expecting... The orange color is useful for orientation. Let's call that north. It seems we have a choice of going north, east, south, west, up, or down, assuming all these doors are unlocked. Any preference on which one you want to try first?"

"None at all. I'm standing closest to east. How about we try that? The spiral staircase is pretty, but I think I've had enough of stairs over the last 12 days."

Kathy and Matt walked over to the east door. There was a small sliding lever adjacent to it on the wall, and Matt found he could control the room lighting, from quite bright to pitch dark. "Wow. It feels nice to be able to control the environment again, at least a little bit..."

Kathy smiled and slid open the door, glanced at the next room, and shouted "Yes!" Before them was laid out a large kitchen area, with the same cubical proportions and color scheme as the empty room they were exiting. Walking in, they saw the kitchen also had a door in each of its four walls, plus another spiral staircase at its center. Ignoring the six exits for the moment, they both walked briskly to a large refrigerator...