“Like I said”—the cold, flat voice of Nemesis filled the room again—“if you fail, you’re toast.”
The sound of Jock’s retching—and the scent of charred flesh—permeated the space.
“The pressure plates around the body reset automatically,” Nemesis said as a final warning.
“And then there were six,” Guapo said loudly enough for everyone to hear.
His exaggerated air of casual indifference to the carnage did not fool Dani, who detected an underlying note of strain. As much death as the man might have caused or witnessed over the years, she doubted he had ever seen anything like this. On the other hand, her background had given her a front-row seat to some of the most despicable violence human beings could visit upon each other, and she kept her composure.
To her, the way to survive both the game and the immediate problem was to stay calm enough to use logic. Panic reduced the ability to think, especially in abstract ways. An accelerated heart rate and rapid breathing disengaged higher mental processes in favor of basic survival instincts. This particular puzzle called for more advanced problem-solving.
The others must have come to the same conclusion. The Colonel had beckoned to Guapo and Jock, calling them into a huddle to strategize. They kept their distance from each other, though, unwilling to gather close enough to risk being shoved onto the plates.
She felt the corner of her mouth lift in an ironic smile as the Colonel frowned at his men. They were members of the same group, but they were not a team. They had no trust, no allegiance, no loyalty.
She turned to Toro. “When Nemesis said we’d be toast, he meant it literally.”
He nodded. “You think the rest of the clue is literal too?”
“I’ve noticed a pattern,” she said. “Nemesis chooses words that can be interpreted different ways.”
“If you follow the sequence of the squares, you’re golden,” he repeated from the clue.
“If you follow the sequence of the squares rationally,” Dani corrected. “That must mean there’s a logical order to the arrangement of the pressure plates.”
She let her conscious mind recede, allowing individual words to stand out.
“A logical order is a progression,” she muttered. “And golden. Another odd word choice.”
“It’s a common enough expression,” Toro said. “When you’re golden, you’re good to go. You can cross safely.”
“There’s another thing,” she went on, disregarding Toro’s comment, sinking deeper into her own thoughts. “Nemesis said to follow the sequence of the squares, not the placement or the pattern.”
A distant memory that had been floating in her subconscious broke through to the surface. After their father died, she and her siblings had moved in with their aunt and uncle. Axel became distraught. Therapists did their best, but Dani was often the only one who could soothe him. She understood him in a way others didn’t.
Even as a young boy, Axel loved math. Dani instinctively sensed that rational equations gave him a feeling of control in a world that had become chaotic. Math problems could be solved. They made sense, while feelings often did not.
When he was at his worst, Dani would sit with him and take him through mathematical progressions, which calmed him and refocused his attention. His favorite was the Fibonacci sequence, which was both easy to grasp and complex to calculate in his head. Its simple elegance was also beautiful when graphed out on a chart.
She turned to Toro. “The Fibonacci sequence.” She could not mention anything about her brother while Nemesis was listening. The less he knew about her family, the safer they would be.
Toro lifted a quizzical brow. “The what?”
She dropped her voice. “The Fibonacci sequence is closely related to the golden ratio.” She waited for him to appreciate the significance of the words. “It’s a mathematical progression. Basically, you start with zero and one; after that, you add the two numbers to get the next one in the series.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Zero plus one equals one,” she said. “Now you have three numbers: zero, one, and one. You add both ones to make two. Then you add the last two numbers, which are one and two, that makes three. Again, you add the most recent two numbers, which are two and three, and that gives you five.”
Toro’s face showed comprehension. “Then you add three and five to get eight.” When she nodded, he smiled. “You think that’s the pattern of the squares?”
“I do,” she said. “The only problem is to figure out where to start counting them.”
They both looked at the rows of pressure plates.
“There’s nothing else in the clue,” Toro said. “Maybe there’s something different about one of these plates.”
“We’re looking for zero,” she said, casting her gaze across the floor. A single polished metal plate stood out from the rest, which were all brushed steel.
She pointed it out to Toro. “The shiny one over there,” she whispered.
He followed her gaze. “If that’s zero, how do we jump to it? It’s too far away.”
“Remember how we were wondering where to start?” she said. “This room is laid out as a rectangle. Now that we know where point zero is, we can use the Fibonacci sequence to chart a spiral using the squares. There will be a point at which a part of the spiral will intersect with each edge. That’s the place where we take our first step. It’s ingenious, because it doesn’t matter which side of the rectangle we’re on, we can all follow the equation to travel to any other side.”
“Maybe you’d better do the math,” Toro said. “You’ve done it before.”
She focused on the shiny square and began her count. She had charted many beautiful symmetrical spirals with her brother. This would be no different. Taking her time, keeping her breathing steady, she kept count until she reached the point of intersection.
“This is the plate,” she said to Toro.
“Let’s just make sure,” he said, taking off his boot. He dropped it onto the plate. Nothing happened.
The intercom above them crackled to life. “The plates are only activated with at least a hundred pounds of pressure,” Nemesis said. “You cannot cheat by dropping an object on them to test them.”
Guapo, who had been about to copy Toro’s move, cursed and pulled his own boot back on. They all should have known Nemesis would thwart any attempt to defeat his carefully laid trap. He wanted to see them suffer and die, and his bloodlust wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less.
Toro looked at Dani. She noticed the others watching her as well. They could not have overheard the whispered conversation she had shared with Toro, but they realized Dani had a theory and was about to put it to the test.
This was her idea, and she would be the one to try it. She surreptitiously tucked the gun back into her boot to free her hands, making it easier to balance, then double-checked her previous count and came to the same point of intersection. She would be proved right or wrong. She braced herself and placed her foot firmly on the pressure plate.
Nothing happened.
Toro exhaled a noisy breath he’d probably been holding since she had started to take the first step. “You must be right,” he said to her. “I can follow in your footsteps.”
“What about us?” Guapo called out to her. “Are you going to leave the rest of us here?”
Her spiraling path along the pressure plates would take her to a contact point with each of the other sides. She would soon be within their grasp.
Or within shoving distance.
Toro’s eyes traveled to her boot, then back up to her face. He raised an inquiring brow. His suggestion was clear. Why not use her gun to hold them all at bay while the two of them crossed the room?
She had already decided to use that tactic as a last resort. There was only one round left in the magazine and one in the chamber. She couldn’t take them all out. Once she fired twice, everyone would see the slide lock open after the second shot and know the gun was empty, ending her ability to bluff her way out. She had to save ammo in case of a firefight later.
If she could gain their cooperation, she wouldn’t have to give up the element of surprise that came with her tactical advantage. Never let the enemy know your full capabilities. Let him believe he has the advantage . . . until it’s too late. She would outmaneuver the others, and they would never know it.
It would do her no good to solve the problem only to have one of the others topple her onto the plates to fry like the first man. This required cooperation. Not trusting them in the slightest, she used her only leverage.
“I’ve figured out a solution,” she announced. “But none of you will ever leave this room unless you follow in my footsteps, which means you have to let us go first.” She gestured to Toro and then to herself. “When we make it to the other side, we’ll take the water and leave.”
“No deal,” the Colonel said. “According to Nemesis, you’re a spy.”