Countdown from Three

~Chapter 6~ Where I'd rather be

There were small spheres flying overhead, automatons, scouting every corner in an orderly routine. He ducked out of sight whenever he knew one was coming, but dared not to look at it. It must be all cameras. Trying to minimise the need to disable both moving and immobile security cameras, Arcthorn sought hideouts for every step, proceeding slow but steadily. Thankfully there were newly arrived supplies in large stacks of metal drawers that he could use as cover. From his ring he activated a weak force field to hide his appearance from anyone or security machines from a distance, but did not risk affecting the magnetic fields around him profoundly and raising alarms.

Out of the corner of his eyes he spotted two rows of black panels bracing the wall, one at knee height and another at waist height. The sight prompted vague memory at the back of his mind. A round disk around the size of a marble appeared between his fingers; Arcthorn shut one eye to aim, and flung it in a straight line. The disk inconspicuously attached itself on one of the lower panels. He adjusted the wireless earpiece at his right ear.

A mechanical voice sounded immediately. "Temperature reading : 23 degrees Celcius. Thermal imaging: NAD."

NAD. No abnormalcy detected.

They used thermal imaging, using heat detection to uncover intruders. He read about the technique before - in fact when he first met Azure, her encyclopedia of ancient inventions fell open to that page.

They never failed to detect people, but now they read NAD. How? He was a normal living person. For a split second his eyes widened in surprise.

Then it suddenly dawned him that as a citizen of Empyrean, he had a lower natural body temperature than those from Clandestine. Right now he was still drenched from the rain, taking away a few more centigrades a from his body temperature. The benchmark measurement for a living human would be higher on Clandestine programs.

Ironic. Sitting in the rain seemed a terribly irrational idea, but now it saved his life - or prolonged it, at least.

He waited for another automaton to go by before advancing further.

The security became increasingly difficult to go by. As he slipped through another entrance to the labyrinth-like operation centre, an array of tiles of irregular shapes and dazzling colours confronted him; Arcthorn halted abruptly. They were odd, out of place in the general dull colour scheme. One wrong step would cost him all of his hard work. He studied the tiles in a split second.

The first row consisted of a green square, a yellow triangle, an orange octagon, and a black hexagon. The second row was marble tiles that extended across the entire row; that was the safe zone. Starting from the third row, everything was more complicated. There was a white irregular heptadecagon, a maroon decagon, a crimson tetradecagon, and a lime green hexdecagon. The next row had a pentadecagon, an octadecagon, a hendecagon, and an icosagon, all were varying shades of blue. The shapes of tiles of the next row were all beginning with the prefix enneaconta. It was already hard enough to keep track of. There were twenty six rows in all. It was a fascinating puzzle, even when it was a choice between life and death.

Five seconds ticked past; it had been enough for him to solve the conundrum. He threw a wooden cube that he carried with him in the yellow triangle. There were no alarms, no sudden zaps. Good. He moved into the triangle and then to the safe zone on the second row. Without hesitation he chose the red tetradecagon next, the dark blue pentadecagon after that, and the canary yellow enneacontakaidigon on the fifth row.

Half a minute later he arrived at the safety of the puzzle's end.

Onto the next level. Arcthorn spiralled in a circular maze, checking the number patterns underfoot for clues. So far it didn't seem very complex at all. On the second ring of walls, four numbers marked the four directions on the ground. Though he couldn't see more than the next three choices, the previous puzzle had given him an inspiration. Choosing seven, he turned left. On the next turn he kept walking, and turning right on the intersection after that, following the digits in his head: seven, one, eight, two, eight, one...

There it was, the exit; beyond he would find the entrance to another door, deeper into the heart of the Armoury. Three identical doors confronted him. Arcthorn glanced at the numbers that marked the directions.

2, 5, 9, 6.

What was the fiftieth digit of e again?

Five. He made his choice in a split second. He dashed through without thought but suddenly froze in agony.

A second thought followed belatedly.

The fiftieth digit was five, but the fifty-first was nine. When only fifty were considered, of course the answer would be rounded up.

A beam of red light shot his arm and numbness struck him. The floor underfoot collapsed instantly. A trapdoor.

Out of instinct, Arcthorn kicked the edge of the trapdoor, using the force to propel himself forward.

His left hand grasped the edge of the other side. Gritting his teeth, Arcthorn heaved himself up, back on the platform. He tried to flex the fingers of his other hand. It was no good; his entire right arm was paralysed. Red light flared from the down-lights that lined the edges of the ceiling. His good hand reached over to adjust the earpiece at the right.

He froze. An emergency unit was dispatched in his direction; the preference was to capture him alive, but permission was given to terminate him if he showed resistance. His eyes half-closed. it would be easier to surrender, wouldn't it? At this point, would remaining alive make any difference?

How careless of him to be exposed after coming this far.

Game over.

***

The sun rose signalling last day.

Despair hit Azure, so hard and sudden as if it wasn't an emotion but a heavy slab of cement. She found everything in the room irritating, though she felt perfectly peaceful in the same environment for the past two days.

No, there was not a fault in the perfect structure of the control room or the jet as a whole, but Azure found herself pacing about fastidiously, criticising every imaginary flaw.

Her insides churned. Her mind was riddled with convoluted thoughts and emotions. Why was she so moody? She was always the indifferent girl, selfish, unconcerned.

What was the reason of her frustration?

She felt trapped, suffocated inside the walls of the control room. She'd rather be back in Empyrean, everything she'd learnt the past two days unbeknownst to her, going to school and continue with her uneventful life.

Even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew it was a lie.

Azure leaned against the wall, and slid down on the ground, feeling powerless. The mysterious despair was simply overwhelming. It gnawed at her heart. She clenched her fist tightly, threatening to draw blood, but her mind was occupied.

Something was terribly wrong. What remained rational of her brain was awakened. If she was safe, the feeling must have come from another whom she cared for at the present.

And there was only one. He was in danger.

Then, where would she rather be?

This time, she had the answer. Not here. She moved to the chair before the central computer, started turning the switches the way she remembered. Her long unused genius was unleashed, like a knight's sword that hadn't tasted blood for years being drawn from its sheath in a battle.

She would rather be with him, fight by his side, whether it meant life or death.