V2Ch39-A Shade of Gray

The sound of footsteps drew closer as Mina’s mind worked quickly to decide what they should do next.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Cara said, intruding on her thoughts. Mina turned and saw the other woman had her sword drawn and had assumed a fighting pose. “If there are enemies, I’ll protect you and your baby.” She flashed Mina a confident grin.

To think I was so annoyed at you just a minute or so ago. Mina felt slightly guilty, but she silently stepped to the side and let Cara stand closer to the opening in the wall.

As they waited, Cara took a moment to quietly throw out a question: “Boy or girl, by the way?”

There was something about the way those words came out that rubbed Mina slightly the wrong way. As if one of the two were a wrong answer.

But maybe she was just a bit tired of restraining her annoyance at the other woman’s chatter, and she was starting to read too much into her tone.

“We wanted to be surprised,” she lied. We know, but we’re not telling, she wanted to say. But she decided to trust her initial misgivings. Mina’s instincts about people were usually pretty good.

And then the footsteps they’d heard drew near and stopped.

There was a long moment of shared silence. The people on the other side of the wall didn’t move. Mina and Cara didn’t say anything. Cara remained poised to strike.

“Are we just going to stand here all day?!” A voice finally called from the other side of the wall.

“Shut up!” Another voice responded to the first. Both were male.

“Ugh, men,” Cara muttered under her breath. She backed slightly further away from the entrance, changed her stance slightly, and pointed her sword straight at the entrance. The impression she gave was that she was ready to immediately spring at the first person to show himself.

Mina’s eyes widened. We can’t afford to start a fight here!

“Why are you two standing there in the first place?” she asked loudly.

“We could ask you the same thing!” The first voice called back immediately.

“We hoped you might be members of our group,” Mina replied instantly. She had actually been worried the footsteps might be maze-dwelling monsters at first, but that concern implied that she and Cara might have been preparing an ambush, so she didn’t voice it.

“Well, clearly you can tell by our voices we’re not.” The second voice spoke calmly, diplomatically.

Then Mina saw a shape move across the opening in the maze. One of these two was showing himself. Mina gestured at Cara to lower her sword, and the other woman complied with visible reluctance.

A man appeared, standing by the far wall on the other side of the entrance. He was positioned a cautious distance away, probably in case of any attack. Mina noticed he looked vaguely familiar. Tall, well-built, brunette with buzz cut hair.

Cara wasn’t going to hit him unless she could lunge a pretty good distance anyway, Mina thought. As much as the other woman looked like a Viking, Mina had seen her Status information. She knew that Cara was still fairly low-level.

“Oh, I recognize you!” the man said. It was the owner of the first voice, Mina noticed. The one who had seemed impatient before. “Hey, come on out, Keith!”

The second man poked his head out from alongside the near wall. He was positioned, Mina noticed, to be able to spring out and intercept any surprise attack that they might have directed at his companion.

They’re careful, she noted.

She also immediately recognized the second man, who had long blonde hair and reminded her of commercials for beach and surfing products. She noticed he seemed slightly sweaty, surprising considering that the maze had so far been a reasonable approximation of room temperature.

“Hey, it’s you!” Keith said, smiling. “The lady who wanted to share food with the losing team.”

“It’s me!” Mina said, smiling with relief.

Keith stepped through the entryway and extended his hand to Mina. She gave him a firm grip and shook his hand. In her peripheral vision, she noticed Cara had backed further away.

Can’t show fear, Cara, Mina thought. That’s when people get the idea that you’re vulnerable. Most people aren’t looking for vulnerability all the time. They only notice it when it’s presented.

“Do you guys want to go through the rest of the maze together?” Keith asked.

“You just going to make that call without even asking me?” his companion said irritably.

“Don’t mind Terry here,” Keith said. “He’s just like this all the time. Doesn’t like making new friends for some reason.”

“Hmph,” Terry scoffed.

Mina didn’t need to turn around to observe Cara’s body language. She could feel the tension coming from the edge of her range of vision.

I obviously need to reject this offer one way or another, she thought.

“Well, if we joined you or you joined us, we’d probably be going the wrong way,” Mina said. “At least in my mental model of the maze so far, I don’t think we’re supposed to take these paths that intersect with each other. We wouldn’t get closer to the outside of the maze, and neither would you.”

“Oh, so you think you’ve figured this out already?” Keith asked, curious.

“Not exactly figured it out, but I have a working theory,” Mina admitted. “I don’t think it would be productive for us to move together, though. Unless you’re both willing to follow my lead and do whatever I suggest, when I suggest it.”

Terry’s body was mostly blocked from view by Keith standing in the opening, but Mina could tell he bristled at that suggestion just from the way his shoulder stiffened.

“This isn’t marksmanship, lady!” Terry said. “We have no reason to follow your know-it-all ass anywhere.”

“Please forgive my friend’s rudeness,” Keith said, turning his head to throw a glare at his companion. “We’ve been having a difficult time these last couple of challenges.”

“My fucking rudeness!” Terry growled. “You want to follow her? It would just be the blind leading the blind.”

“I think maybe we’d better go our separate ways,” Mina said gently.

“Yeah,” Keith agreed unhappily, turning back to face her. He stepped back into the section of the maze he’d come from.

And Mina and Cara began to walk away.

“Thanks for getting rid of those guys,” Cara said once they were out of earshot of the two men. “Maybe I’m paranoid, but I just felt like they were bad news.”

“Well, Keith seemed nice enough, but I wouldn’t want to trust my back to Terry,” Mina replied.

They walked in silence for several more minutes. Then Cara stopped suddenly. She put a finger to her lips. Mina stepped back so that she could position herself closer to Cara. If they were going to be ambushed, she didn’t want to be standing alone.

“Did you hear that?” Cara whispered once Mina was close.

Mina shook her head.

“We’re being followed,” Cara whispered with an air of certainty. “Whoever it was stopped moving when we stopped moving. Probably humans. Those two guys.” She nodded to herself.

“Okay, I trust your senses,” Mina replied quietly. She looked around and spotted the next door. “When we start moving again, mark that door and then go through it.” She pointed.

Cara nodded and smiled.

Then they started walking again. Mina still couldn’t hear the sounds of anyone following in their footsteps, but she trusted Cara’s Light Warrior senses more than her own Mage senses anyway. And the next few minutes would prove or disprove the idea that they were being followed.

Cara took her usual heavy swing at the wall near the opening and left a long vertical scar in the stone.

Is she getting stronger as we go along? Mina wondered. Either that, or it had taken Cara a while to figure out the precise amount of physical power she needed to use to do real damage to the rock.

She and Cara stepped through the opening. Then Mina moved counter clockwise and pulled her through another opening. They stepped far enough away from the opening in that area that their shadows would not be visible to passersby looking through the opening. The passage had a dead end, so they stood at the dead end.

And they waited.

Several minutes passed, but both women maintained a disciplined silence. Then there was a sound of footsteps outside of their passage, and two familiar voices.

“Where the fuck are they?!” Terry said angrily.

“I told you we should’ve just apologized,” Keith said.

“Where do we go now? Tell me that instead!”

“Why can’t you chill out, man?” Keith asked.

“After that last challenge, you aren’t in a position to scold me anymore!” Terry declared.

There was a sound of steel clanking against steel, and then Cara and Mina listened to the sounds of a struggle between the two men. The wall vibrated slightly with what Mina took to be the weight of two armored bodies slamming into it. Then there was a squelching sound, like a boot stepping into mud or a knife sinking into flesh. The sound repeated itself, once, twice, a third time. There was a terrible gasp and choking sound.

Then Mina could only hear the sound of heavy breathing and one man making small, quick, efficient movements in armor. She wished she knew exactly what was happening.

There was a sound of footsteps again. This time they were walking away.

Mina waited for Cara to nod that it was okay to move before she walked toward the opening. Even then, she poked her head out and cautiously looked both ways before she stepped out.

She sucked in a sharp breath at what she saw.

“What is it?” Cara asked anxiously from behind her. “Are they still there?”

“No,” Mina said quietly. “They’re not.”

She stepped out. Keith lay in a bloody heap on the floor, breathing ragged, shallow breaths, eyes shut. His armor looked to be intact, but his body leaked blood from at least three stab wounds that Mina could identify. One under the right shoulder, one near the right hip, and one that looked to be the left thigh. Terry had apparently done a good job of targeting the gaps in the armor.

Jesus, Mina thought. Jesus Christ.

She approached, knelt next to him, and began rummaging through her Small Bag of Deceptive Dimensions.

“What are you doing?!” Cara hissed, stepping into the passage and looking up and down the hall anxiously. “The other guy could come back any second. We have to get out of here!”

“Then find a Health Potion if you can,” Mina said evenly without looking up. “I’m not just going to leave Keith here to die. The faster we get a Healing Potion in him, the sooner we can leave.”

“Doesn’t he have anything?” Cara asked.

“No, the other guy took his bag.”

Keith’s eyes flickered open and shut at the sounds next to him. Mina caught his eye for a moment and gave him a small nod. She couldn’t tell whether he was even able to focus on what he was seeing, but then she saw a small smile spread over his lips.

He breathed a word out, barely audible. “Thanks.”

Finally, Mina found a Health Potion, yanked out the stopper, and shoved it in his mouth. Keith drank, wasted a little that he had trouble swallowing, but ultimately swallowed most of it.

“Now we can go,” Mina said quietly. Cara was hovering over her shoulder like a vulture waiting for death.

They ducked out through the opening they’d come through when they’d fled the sound of pursuing footsteps. Then Mina walked them to the next opening after that, which was where she’d originally planned to exit the third passage.

“Don’t bother marking this one,” she told Cara. “I don’t want Terry to know which way we went if he retraces his steps.”

“You’re infuriating, you know that?” Cara said as she followed Mina through the opening. “You’re clearly smarter than everyone else around us, and you seem to know your way around here well enough already. Plus, you have me to protect you.” She puffed herself up as she said that last. “All of which means you and I could finish first. But we probably won’t. Why did you bother stopping for that guy? He and his friend are both assholes.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Mina stopped and looked Cara dead in the eye.

“How do I know?” Cara repeated.

“Yes.”  Mina gave her a long, cold look as she spoke. “How do you know that Keith is an asshole with such certainty that you’re comfortable leaving someone to die? I understood you wanting to get out of there at the time. I was afraid that Terry would come back too. I really appreciate you being a lookout. But I don’t understand why you’re still talking about it.”

Cara seemed to shrink a little inside herself under Mina’s withering gaze.

“I just know the type,” she said after a long silence. “You’re a nice person, Mina, but I can tell you don’t have a lot of real world experience with bad men. People generally aren’t as kind to each other as I’ve seen you tend to be. Most guys aren’t like Jean and Detective DaSilva—”

“You know nothing about my life experiences before I came here,” Mina replied, cutting her off. “You’re just guessing. Poorly.”

“Uh, sorry.” Cara’s voice grew small and quiet.

After they had walked in silence for a minute, Mina put an arm around Cara’s shoulders.

“I may have been a little harsh,” Mina said. “I just try not to engage in black and white thinking, and I react against it a bit forcefully when I see it in others. Most people are a shade of gray. You’re a sweet girl, and I really like your protective instinct. I feel like you could be a good mother someday.”

“Bleh,” Cara said. “I wouldn’t—Oh, my gosh!” She pointed at another rectangular opening in the wall. “There’s the fourth opening. That’s where we’re going, right?”

“No,” Mina said. “We’re looking for the fifth one, if it exists. I like where your head is at, though.”

They kept walking until they came to a fifth exit to the passage they were in. Mina led them through it, and then through the eighth exit from that passageway. In the next passageway, Mina led them through the thirteenth opening.

“Okay, I think I get it,” Cara said. “There’s addition involved here. You’re not just counting the number of passageways and picking a number of openings based on that. The exit you choose is the number of the last two openings you passed through. We went through the eighth exit, and before that the fifth exit of the last passageway, so now you took us through the thirteenth exit. What I don’t get is how you picked out this pattern. I guess I can understand how you know it’s correct, since we’ve been able to keep advancing over and over again.”

“It’s the Fibonacci sequence,” Mina said. “It was just a hunch at first, but it kept confirming itself based on the number of exits available. At some point, we’ll be in a passageway with more exits than the Fibonacci number that we should be on, and then knowing that’s the structure will really come in handy.”

“Um, sure,” Cara said. “How did you know that, though? Where did the hunch come from?”

“The shape of the maze we’re in,” Mina said. “It’s a spiral. The more we traveled along vaguely circular paths, the clearer it became. That reminded me of the Fibonacci sequence. Some shapes in nature have a structure that corresponds to the ratios of the Fibonacci sequence.”

“Okay,” Cara said. “I’ll take your word for it that it’s this math thing. You have some really strong nerd instincts, Mina.”

“Well, you have great instincts for avoiding being ambushed, Cara. Thank you for keeping me and my baby safe through this challenge. No one could have done it better.” The two women smiled at each other.

After moving through a few more passageways, the next exit they took led down a long hall with no apparent exits. As they neared the end of this tunnel, Mina and Cara exchanged excited glances. They could both see a door.

I hope Yulia found her way through, Mina thought. She knew that no one else on the team was likely to have picked up on the pattern the maze was constructed in. Certainly not without going down a false path first.

“Hey, look!” A voice shouted from behind them.

Mina turned and saw two young men running down the same narrow hall she and Cara were most of the way through.

I guess now we’ve arrived at the part where it becomes a race, she thought.

Cara started jogging, trying to keep their lead.

Mina tried to run after her, but it was more of an ungainly waddle than anything else. Pregnancy slowing her down again.

Cara looked back and slowed down a little so she wouldn’t get further from Mina.

They both began losing their leads over their pursuers.

As the men approached, Mina realized she recognized these two from the first challenge too. Other members of that same team.

Then the men were beside them, trying to get past in the narrow hallway. Mina tried to step out of their way, but there wasn’t enough space. One of them was the Hispanic guy with the acne scars who had asked her why she was sharing supplies. She hadn’t spoken to the other guy, but she recognized his prominent chin, thick wavy brown hair, and lanky basketball player build.

The Hispanic guy got a look of recognition on his face as they drew up beside them. He started to say something.

“Hey—”

But Mina didn’t hear the rest of what he had to say. The other man shoved her, hard, out of his way.

She hit the stone wall with a heavy thud and practically bounced off.

Then she slammed into the ground, landing on her stomach.

A sharp pain throbbed through her abdomen.