Chapter 69

Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 11 AM

It had been two hours since they had left the green tower and its gigantic slide, but time was the least of Ricardo’s worries now. He and his group knew they were in trouble more than an hour ago. The worries began when their narrow path through the foam swung far into the northern wing of the crescent maze. They had not traveled this part of the crescent on their previous trip. The inescapable conclusion was that the path through the maze was dynamic. The consequences were frightening. What if their path turned into a closed loop? Would they be trapped in the foam forever?

For the moment, that particular fate did not seem likely. They were approaching the green tower again, and this time from the northwest and not the southwest as before. After another few minutes of walking, Ricardo and his people were again standing at the top of the fearsome parabolic slide.

Ricardo took a deep breath to calm himself as he considered his options. He was leaning towards jumping off the edge of the maze with everybody, but wanted to be sure he wasn’t overlooking something before taking that irreversible slide.

Scenario A: They go down the slide and continue their exploration.

Scenario B: They try the path again, and this time hope it led back to the pink tower and home. If he had his choice, Ricardo wanted to return home. Should he try the path again?

Scenario C: They try the path again, and wander forever in closed loops until their supplies ran out and they died.

Scenario D: They try the path again, and come back to the green tower. Nothing lost except time. But then again, Ricardo considered time to be the universe’s ultimate non-renewable resource. How valuable would the future show that lost time to be?

Was the possibility of Scenario B worth the risk of Scenarios C or D? Hell no! And yet, Ricardo was still reluctant to commit to the descent. Was there something he was overlooking? Hell yes! He turned and stared in the direction of the pink tower. Why not just walk through the foam? It looked yucky, but it felt like nothing.

Ricardo shivered as he considered the option. They would be walking blind, unable to see their footfalls. What would that be like, walking in shaving cream up to his waist? And what if the floor sloped down, and led deeper into the foam? Would it go over their necks? Jessica with her short height was already on the borderline. Could they breathe this stuff? It would make sense to test now while they had the chance. Otherwise, if they didn’t know how to transverse the maze, what would be their motivation for coming back up here? Sliding down now without testing would be an admission that they would never return to their home hexagon.

Ricardo smiled. They would do some testing and keep their options open. But first, it was time to elevate Jenaro over Hernando again. The last thing Ricardo wanted was the two men to be friendly with each other and perhaps conspire against him. Almost by random choice, he had been picking on Hernando this morning. It was now time to give Jenaro’s ego a little boost.

Ricardo turned to him. “Jenaro?”

The man nervously turned to him. “Yeah?”

“I want your opinion on something. Do you think we should take the slide or try the path again for home?”

“Uh...” Jenaro took a quick look at the path in back of them and shivered. The foam maze was scaring him greatly, and he was desperate to leave it. But showing Ricardo his fear would be a huge mistake. He needed another reason. “Well, I would think the slide might be safer, and after all, we did come out here to explore.”

“True enough, compadre,” Ricardo replied with a smile. “True enough.”

Jenaro cracked a small smile and puffed up his chest a bit. “But I think I’d test a bit first.”

Ricardo blinked. “Test how?”

“Oh, something easy. Slide a backpack down the slide, just to see the slide in action.” He saw Ricardo frown and added hastily. “Maybe not a whole backpack of course. Maybe something small that won’t break.”

Ricardo’s frown had nothing to do with disapproving what Jenaro had suggested. He was annoyed with not thinking of such a simple test himself. Ricardo turned and barked an order to Hernando. “You heard him. Take off your backpack, find something heavy and release it down the slide.”

Hernando tried to hide a quick sullen frown that Ricardo was delighted to see. Hernando rooted around for a moment and pulled out a flashlight and looked at Ricardo. Ricardo gave a curt nod and ordered Jessica to time the motion. Hernando placed the flashlight at the lip of the slide and waited for Jessica to be ready.

They all inwardly groaned at the result of the experiment. The surface seemed to offer the flashlight no friction at all, and it picked up a frightening amount of speed in its seven-meter vertical drop and twenty-four meter horizontal slide. Although they had no way to quantify the number, they all saw the flashlight fire off the slide horizontally at grass level. Its actual terminal speed was in excess of forty kph. It acted like a stone skipping across a lake of grass. The flashlight bounced and tumbled and spun for many meters before finally coming to rest.

“Holy shit!” hissed Jenaro. Hernando felt like saying something too but he bit his tongue. He was sure any comment he made would be used by Ricardo to pick on him again.

“Three point five seconds,” whispered Jessica with a trembling voice. “Really close to three and a half seconds. My God...”

“It’s not that bad,” Ricardo insisted. “Hernando is carrying a hundred meters of rope. We’ll just lower it and crawl down slowly.” But his mind screamed at him as he said this. There was absolutely no place to tie down their rope at the top of the tower. The sea-green walls were as frictionless as the slide, and the beveled tops of the walls looked razor sharp. The last person to leave would have to slide freefall.

Damn! Could he trust that last person to follow him? Or did Ricardo have to ride the slide himself, just to be sure the group stayed together? He hated both ideas, hated the thought of risking personal injury and hated even more the need to trust someone. His mind returned to the possibility of walking back home through the foam. This would probably be their last chance. Ricardo didn’t give a fuck about saving Diego’s life. His only concern was the risk of travelling off the walkway and through the foam. Was it safe?

It was time to bark some new orders. “Hernando! Face the foam and kneel down on all fours. Get your nose right up against it.”

Hernando cringed at the command, but Ricardo could kill him with his cane if he disobeyed and probably would. So with a whimper he semi-complied, kneeling on all fours but keeping his head about half a meter from the foam. Ricardo shook his head in disgust and genuine fury. Originally he was just going to order Hernando to stick his nose in and take a sniff. But this half hearted attempt to follow orders called for some swift discipline. Ricardo swung his legs over Hernando and positioned himself above and to the rear of the kneeling man’s butt.

In one smooth motion, Ricardo dropped his body, slamming his knees into Hernando’s ass and driving the man’s head forward and into the foam. Meanwhile Ricardo’s hands had come up under Hernando’s diaphragm and he jerked his thumbs up hard into Hernando’s soft midsection, driving the air from the man’s chest in an explosive burst. Hernando’s reaction was automatic. His head invisible past his neck, Hernando breathed in a great lungful of the foam as he tried to catch his breath.

Knowing that Hernando had taken in a full breath, Ricardo released him and screamed, “Never disobey me again! Never! Do you hear me?! Now stand up!” The man did, panting and turning to Ricardo with a wounded look on his face. Ricardo asked calmly, “Did it taste like anything?”

Hernando shook his head, still panting heavily. “I didn’t taste anything. Fucking hell, Ricardo! That hurt!”

Ricardo shrugged. “You deserved it, Hernando. Complain again and you’ll deserve more. Now what about vision? Could you see through the foam?”

“No!” Hernando was still gasping for breath. “Pale green light everywhere, I couldn’t see shit!” He took in several more full breaths and then with a frightened look on his face cried out, “I’m not getting any air!”

Ricardo shrugged. “You’ll get over it. I decided we won’t go down the slide. We’re going to walk back to the pink tower through the foam. We’ll lay kilometers of rope if we have to, bring it up from the mall. I don’t want to...” He paused and stared at Hernando. The man was drawing in one great lungful of air after another, yet his skin was turning a dusky bluish color.

“Hey, compadre,” Jenaro said nervously. “You okay?”

“I can’t breath!” Hernando screamed.

Jenaro blinked in puzzlement. “What?”

Hernando’s eyes glazed over with panic and rage, and he turned his fury on Ricardo. “I’ve got this fucking shit in my lungs! You fucking moron! You’ve killed me!”

Ricardo reacted without hesitation or mercy. As Hernando threw a roundhouse punch at Ricardo’s head, Ricardo grabbed the wrist and twisted and broke it, spinning the arm up. The pain in this wrist and shoulder drove Hernando off his feet, and Ricardo threw the man headfirst into the foam. The result was totally unexpected. Hernando’s body disappeared completely, and the group heard a fading scream as if Hernando had fallen off a cliff. The three remaining people stood on the narrow path in shocked silence.

After a moment Ricardo picked up his cane and tentatively probed the area where Hernando had fallen. He was shocked to find his cane could detect no floor under the foam. The path they were standing on ended at the exact contour of the mounds of foam.

The implication hit Ricardo like a sledgehammer. They had no idea of the true depth of the foam, and from the fade of Hernando’s scream, the depth might be enormous, a hundred meters, maybe more. All these hours, they were walking on a thin ridgeline only two and a half meters wide. The gentle rolls of foam had provided the appearance that the foam was only a meter deep and that the floor was everywhere, but it was all just an illusion.

Ricardo took a moment to think. Why hadn’t he probed the floor under the foam before? He could have easily when they first entered the maze at the pink tower. It seemed so obvious now, and it would have been such a simple test to make, but it just never occurred to him.

Fucking hell! It was too late to worry about that now! And besides, the choice of direction was now obvious. He told his two remaining subordinates of his new decision. A frightened Jenaro nodded and started taking the rope out of Hernando’s backpack.

Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 11:17 AM

Fifty minutes before system reset, Holly came into the Hilton conference room with a worried look on her face. Absolutely everyone else on the surface in their society was here except Toshi. Holly and Toshi had taken the monitoring night shift earlier, and normally would be turning in soon. But the excitement of the pending reset made sleep impossible, and they volunteered to join everybody at the Hilton and also join the rotation of checking the census counter on the nearby elevator. Toshi had checked five minutes ago and everything was fine. Holly did not have the same experience.

“The census counter dropped by one man,” she announced. “The current reading is 008:077.”

Mark got up immediately. “I’ll check it out.” Holly and Toshi decided to tagged along. After a brisk walk to the elevator and a few seconds to type in the code, they arrived at the Red Mall library. Mark quickly headed for a console. He typed for a moment and then opened a channel back to the Hilton. “Citizen Tag ID 49 is no longer in the system. It was one of Ricardo’s men, or maybe Ricardo himself.”

There was an audible sigh of relief over the network. Charles had been on Pelican Island with a small team earlier this morning. They had reported that their group was all set for the upcoming system reset. The team had signed off more than an hour ago, more than enough time for them to be safely back on the central island, but it was still a great relief to hear Mark’s confirmation that they did not lose a member of their society.

Tom spoke up over the bridge from the entrance rooms of Wobanakik. “ID Tag 49? Then it has to be either Ricardo or Hernando. Jessica, Alfonso, and Jenaro were in the first of the two full elevator trips to Black Mall, so their ID Tags must be between 19 and 36.”

Mark nodded at his console. “I’m showing ID Tags 24, 26, and 27 are still active. That’s them. The two remaining ID Tags for Ricardo’s group are 50 and 53.”

“Right. I’m ID Tag 54. Charles is #51. We were both on the second trip to Black Mall. Diego was directly in front of me as we entered the elevator. He’s ID Tag 53. Charles remembers Hernando and Ricardo being directly in front of him as we entered the elevator. Tags 49 and 50, that’s Ricardo and Hernando for sure. But they were walking side by side. We don’t know which is which.”

Amber spoke up. “It would change everything if Ricardo is dead. But I’m betting he’s still alive. Only one person has died, and it’s Ricardo who is the natural born killer. He is also extremely careful about his own personal safety. It’s much more likely that he ordered Hernando to do something that got Hernando killed.” She paused for a moment and then added, “Fatima, this adds to my case that we should probe the barrier at Black Mall. It’s been three days since they built it. I’m guessing Ricardo is exploring the surface right now, and Hernando is with him and has just died. The Black Mall barrier must be very lightly defended, I’m guessing by one man.”