0088

Unsurprisingly, the explosion was vast and all consuming. One spark ignited an unattended gas leak, triggering a military storage of chemical weapons to fulminate. It incinerated everything within a mile radius and killed thousands. To those unlucky enough to witness the plant’s catastrophic failure, it would be a tragedy seared forever in their memories.

For Jeremy, it was infuriating.

“Damn it, if that lanky prick bumps into me one more time I’m going to decapitate him.” He pulled out a chrome tallier, its white-on-black digits read 0087. He clicked the trigger. A bright flash engulfed him.

From the safety of the observatory respawn, he was back in the main hall. His stubby comrade, Mike, was sitting on a couch with a cocky grin. He stood up.

“You know, you were so close that time, really. If it wasn’t for the one boney soldier-”

“I’m going to decapitate him.” Jeremy huffed before he could finish.

“Yeah. That would look amazing on the rankings, bud.”

Of course causing any harm or being captured to any course civilians was a score deduction. To lead the ranks you couldn’t get caught. Next to agility and improvisation, stealth was the hardest challenge in the history lobbies.

Mike saw his friend was close to quitting. He relented.

“Hey, let’s take a breather. Let's grab a drink before the next round.” He patted Jeremy on the shoulder, who took a deep breath and sighed.

“Fine.”

The two walked through the crowd of other players in the main hall, succeeding and struggling in their own courses. Three women were arguing loudly outside the Halifax room, likely arguing strategies. Some kid and his friends left the Vesuvius lobby in hysterics, covered in dust. It was popular with birthday parties.

Oh all the courses in the Disaster Hub, there was no greater challenge than the Redstone Incident of 2027. The end was anti-climatic, all you had to do was turn off a gas line to stop the explosion. It was managing to navigate an entire military complex in sixty minutes without being captured or shot by military police that was the challenge. Only three people were able to finish since its debut. None of them shared how they did it.

Satisfied with their sodas, the two sat and stewed. In the past couple years, the two have been able to win every history course. Hiroshima, Halifax, New York, Chernobyl, even the Waco room before it was discontinued. They’d always found a way to win all of them. All except Redstone.

“The starting point is way too conspicuous,” Jeremy bemoaned between sips. “I mean I’m supposed to just appear at the front doors of an armory?”

Mike countered, “Well it’s not like they have heavy guards in the lobby or anything. It’s just Carol.” He half-snickered, “And she’s a sweetheart.”

Jeremy leaned back in his chair, hands cupping his face. He rubbed his temples.

“Okay,” he started, “We can’t access the labs without entering through the front. We can’t just run past or the alarms go off.”

“You can’t hit the dead end on the left, either. Plus there’s only one stairwell to the lower level.” Mike lamented. “Seems no matter where you walk around you’re gonna raise suspicion.” He sipped more cola.

Jeremy sat back up, still puzzled. He backtracked.

“And we only have three inventory items.”

“Allen wrench, glowstick, and the key card to the testing room. Yup.”

“The access key, I get. But what the hell are the screwdriver and glow stick for?”

“Honestly,” Mike recalled, “Maybe the Allen wrench turns off the gas line?”

“And the glow stick?”

Mike looked up, cocking an eyebrow. He took a sip before guessing, “to celebrate?”

The two finished gulped the last of their drinks and stood up. They cleared their table and made their way back to the Redstone room. An older muscular guy was leaving as they were approaching, a familiar look of frustration plastered on his face.

The pair entered the lobby. Jeremy placed his tallier on the loading pad.

“Player JEREMY BANE. Attempt number EIGHTY-EIGHT. Please click-in when you’re ready.”

Both of them took communication buds and placed them in their ears. Jeremy grabbed the tallier, along with the inventory pack, securing it around his waist. Then stepped into the transport zone. The game clock above his head reset to a bright red 60:00. He looked back to his friend and held up a tight fist.

“Eighty-eighth times the charm, right?”

“It better be” Mike hit his fist.

With a click, Jeremy was back at the facility doors. Yet again, he only had an hour to turn off the gas line and prevent disaster. Failure meant the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians, not to mention an even more battered ego.

He pushed open the glass doors into the sterile beige armory. An older, blonde woman in professional attire sat behind a tidy desk, tapping away at a computer.

“Hello there, what are you here for sir?”

“No time, Carol.” Jeremy replied. “Where’s the nearest bathroom?”

Carol was confused. However, she cautiously pointed to her left. “Uh...just down that small hallway, second door on the left.”

“Thanks.”

He marched hurriedly down the hall to the men’s room. His ear began to chatter with Mike’s own confusion.

“What are you doing, there’s no time for this! Get your ass down stairs.” 

As he approached the urinal, Jeremy retorted “Well whose idea was it to gulp down a large soda?”

Mike, ignoring the accusation, just replied “Hurry. Up.”

Finished, Jeremy zipped up. He figured he would just try outrunning Military Police and see how well that would go this time. He walked over the mirror to rinse his hands off first, not wanting to catch some century-old virus.

He noticed something in the mirror. Above one of the stalls was a large metal vent. A vent with four hexagonal screws.

Unzipping the inventory pack around his waist, he fished out the Allen wrench.

“No way.”

He opened the stall and stood on the yellow-stained toilet. Fortunately, he was tall enough to reach each screw. They wrench fit perfectly.

“No way.” Mike parroted the same amazed disbelief back.

“Mike, if we beat this course because of a piss break, we have to come up with a better story to tell everyone.”

He began to work at the screws. In a few minutes, the fourth was nearly off. Slowly, he balanced the loose vent cover and gently placed it down in the stall below.

“This is gonna suck,'' Jeremy complained.

Between the toilet’s exposed pipes, the top of the stalls, and the vent’s opening, Jeremy had to hoist himself up without raising alarms or breaking his neck. Balancing one foot on the toilet and another wedged against the stall, he had just enough reach for one forearm to hook into the air duct and his other hand on its edge.

Just as he lifted in, a knock came from the door. 

“Sir. Sir, are you okay?” Carol called from the other side.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Jeremy said under his breath.

He yelled back, dangling from the waist. “Uh, y-yes ma’am. Just not feeling well.”

“Oh,” she continued, noticeably concerned “well my apologies. I can tell whoever you’re here to see you’re…indisposed, if you like.”

“Damn it, Carol, why do you have to be so attentive,” Mike chirped to his friend.

“N-no ma’am,” Jeremy called back to her, ignoring the joke. “I think I’ll just…finish up and come back tomorrow. Don’t want to get him sick.”

With shaking arms and building sweat, Jeremy lifted the rest of his body up before he lost his strength.

“Okay well, sorry to bother you, sir. I’ll come back and check on you in a bit, though. Don’t want anybody dying on me,” She said, then walked away with an awkward chuckle. Jeremy sighed in relief.

He reached back into his inventory pack again, grabbed the emerald glow stick and cracked it. In seconds, neon light flooded the frigid maze. Now he just needed directions.

“Alright, I’m up here…Now what. I don’t exactly have a map.”

There was a pause on the other side. “Well,” Mike finally responded, “if the lab is in the lower level, you can start with a way down. And you’ve got forty-one minutes to find it.”

Jeremy set off down the metal prism, mindfully crawling on his stomach. It was as cold as expected, yet strangely calm. What was an anticipated rush of chilled air was more of a light breeze humming against his ears. Besides the hum, there was only the sporadic clang of arms and legs trying not to be heard below.

After a couple minutes came the first fork in the ducts. Without any kind of blueprints for the ac system, any way could be as good as any. However, based on eighty-seven other errors, the best chance was right. The only open stairwell on the first floor ran down the building’s east wing. 

As Jeremy started down the right side, he was startled by muffled sirens that blared in the rooms below him. 

“I guess Carol checked on me after all,” he reported to Mike

“Told you, she’s a sweetheart.”

With no further care for preventing alarms, Jeremy dropped all ease of pace. He clattered down the duct until he found what seemed like a dead end. After a few feet, it revealed to be quite the opposite. It was a cool aluminum slide to the basement floor.

The only problem is that it was completely vertical. And there was no room to turn feet-first.

Stuck in place, Jeremy wiped frigid sweat from his face. In the midst of claustrophobia, rolling alarms, and a rotation of marching patrol in the halls below, there was no other option. He had to dive down and hope he wouldn’t crack his skull. He began to turn on his back and asked for an update from his partner.

“Twenty-nine minutes left,” Mike reported bluntly.

“Great.”

Now upside down, Jeremy scooted forward. As his head hung over the edge, he pressed his palms against the smooth walls of the downward duct. Slowly, he worked his way over the edge, arching his back to a near breaking point. Once the edge was at his waste, he stretched his right knee to the same wall. Then the left. With every muscle in his body, he managed to fully hold himself facing what was now a five foot drop. 

He began to crawl inch by inch, one appendage at a time. All his force was pressing his back against the wall as he struggled to hold himself. Sweat collected on every limb, then began dripping below. His eyes stung. The walls were lubricated with four feet still to go.

He first lost grip with his right palm with three feet left to go. He darted back, shaking the entire duct. Reverberation flooded his ears.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Jeremy panicked. He couldn’t get situated properly. He fell straight down, two and a half feet.

He smacked the metal directly below. Unintentionally, he managed to avoid breaking his neck when he slid in the slick of his own sweat. Broken and drained, he stayed down at the start of the basement duct. For a minute, the only sounds were random pained groans.

“Jeremy! Are you with me man?” Mike panicked, trying to get him to move. “Should hit the return pad?”

Jeremy thought about it. Every part of his body was in pain. His tooth was chipped. He was half-sure his left elbow imploded.

But he was at the basement level. Just down the hall from glory.

“I’ll sue the company later. We gotta win this. Time.”

Mike checked the game time. “Nineteen minutes.”

It was a great time. Only now they were flying blind. Even worse, Jeremy’s only glow stick broke in half, splattering the ducts and himself in a horror show of grassy pulp. He pressed on.

“So what do I do now? Is there any hint at all of which direction the lab is in?”

Mike was silent yet again on the other end. “I’m sorry man. For once, I’ve got nothing to say. This stinks.”

Jeremy labored forward. In front was a dark dead end. As he approached, he discovered two new hopes. There was a perpendicular duct that ran left and an increasing need to vomit. The air ducts flooded with the stench of rotten eggs.

“The gas leak…” Jeremy pieced the history together. “We’re winning this.”

With a vanishing green tint, he floundered down the rancid tube. With every passing grate, he inhaled deep. Until, on a seventh whiff, he nearly puked. There was a faint hiss in the room attached, barely audible among the faint sirens of the facility above. 

Frantically, he started smashing an elbow against the grate. There was no time or room for tools. Time was running down.

“How. Much. Time. Left” He ordered between slammings.

“Four minutes! Get in there!”

Eventually, the grate bent out and the screws came loose. The grate fell to the floor in a clatter. Jeremy inched forward, then backed up his feet as carefully as he could through the great. When he reached his waist, he pushed. He slammed to the tile below on his back.

“Please take me to a doctor after this,” He pleaded to his friend.

Managing to stand, he worked his way to a light switch and flipped it. He surveyed the room for the source of hissing. Every Bunsen burner had a red handle. Only one of them was facing up.

Jeremy staggered to the burner. He slammed it down. The hissing stopped. Mike cheered in his ear. They won.

He fished out the chrome tallier. The white-on-black digits read 0088. He clicked the trigger. A bright flash engulfed him.