Cryptic Spaces

by Deen Ferrell

  He looked down. By taking the tape measure and drawing a thin line along the floor, stretching from his axis line the distance of the right triangle’s horizontal side, he was able to calculate the apex of the curve. He marked this point on the floor, carefully studying the smooth cement for any hint or clue. Again, there was nothing. Then, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. It was a brief, bluish glow, the same sort of glow he had seen when time froze in Antonio’s shop. It appeared near the ceiling, exactly above the point he had been scouring for clues on the floor. He had barely seen the numbers wink in and out of the glow, but they had been there. His senses heightened as he studied the ceiling where the glow had been.

  At first, all he saw was a sprinkler head, one that looked like any of the dozen or so other sprinkler heads that covered the stairwell ceiling. Its position was perfectly placed—directly over the point he had marked on the floor—but otherwise, it didn’t seem to be anything special. As he looked closer, however, he saw that there were differences to the make-up of this one particular head. Its nozzle was slightly different from the others. It was maybe a half inch wider, and hung down at least an inch or so lower. The nozzle itself was shielded by a metal disk that was darker in tint than the metal on the other sprinkler heads. The more he studied it, the more Willoughby became convinced that this was not part of the building’s fire protection system, but, in fact, a button of some kind. He impulsively snatched his backpack, stood directly under the odd sprinkler head, and threw the pack up, directly at the metal disk.

  The pack connected with the sprinkler head. There was an audible snap and then a tick, tick, tick, tick—as if a bank of switches was kicking in. The top stairwell lights clicked off, plunging the ledge into semi-darkness. The exit door on the floor below bolted shut with a deafening clang.

  Groping for the rail, Willoughby bent over, staring down toward the bottom of the stairwell. Lights on the 12th floor went black, followed by the sound of its door bolting shut. Then lights on the 11th floor, the 10th floor, the 9th floor, all went dark. Lights continued to wink off on every floor all the way down to the ground floor. The doors on each floor locked. When the stairwell was at last in total darkness, Willoughby noticed a soft glow from the wall behind him. The glow was faint at first, but it brightened in intensity. He moved away from the rail, his heart pounding, and groped for his pack. When he nearly tripped on it, he snatched it up.

  The floor began to rumble, almost inaudibly. A rush of cool air brushed against his face. He squinted in the dim light, watching. First, a smooth crack appeared, expanding until it outlined the shape of the two right triangles that shared a central axis—the very shape he had mentally sketched out on the wall. Next, the edges of the crack began to shimmer. Before Willoughby even realized it, the wall actually began to move. It pivoted slowly, the right tip of the triangle pushing inward while the left tip pushed soundlessly out. Finally, the triangle came to rest precisely on the line he had sketched onto the floor. The left tip of the triangle rested directly below the fake ceiling sprinkler Willoughby had identified and triggered with his backpack. He had done it! He had solved this three-dimensional puzzle! Sizzles of electricity zapped all around, tracing the edges of the open wall and the triangle. Willoughby moved cautiously, making for the opening to the left. Excitement surged in him. He had now found his way into Antonio’s secret space!

  5

  Hidden Space

  Willoughby stared. How could he have not seen, or at least felt, the seams of the hidden door? He had stood only inches away, running his hand in wide arches to make sure the wall was perfectly smooth. It was as if the triangular door had just materialized—as if the atoms in the wall had cut themselves free and pulled away. He approached the opening slowly. Around its edges, the neatly severed wall seemed to bend slightly, as if it had become soft rubber and was now being sucked inward. He touched the edge, feeling a strange pull that nearly jerked him off his feet. He ripped his hand away and took a step backward, startled. A voice echoed from inside the room. The accent was unmistakably British.

  “Seventeen minutes from entry to solution. You are impressive, Willoughby.”

  Willoughby peered into the strange room. The voice came from near the center of the room, but he could see no one there. The air in the center of the room seemed to distort, the voice undulating with a strange pulse, as if it were being carried wirelessly over a great distance. “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to find this door,” the voice continued. “Were you just wasting time, or do you wish to step in? We can’t keep the stairwell locked all day. I don’t think James Glaisher would have hesitated. Do you have what it takes to be a true explorer? Do you have the courage to step through the door?”

  Willoughby had not moved. “Who are you? How do you know my name?”

  There was a long silence and Willoughby once again got the feeling that the voice was traversing a great distance. “Once inside, you will feel a tug. Don’t fight it! It will only make the journey more difficult. There are answers to your questions, but pointless is the answer without the proper question. If you are the boy we think you are, you feel drawn to the puzzle, the paradox of this room. You haven’t time to reason it out, Willoughby. There is only time to act, or to lose forever the chance. This doorway closes forever for you in 14 seconds; 13; 12…”

  Willoughby tried to take in the faintly buzzing dimness. He could still feel the pull from the room. He heard a soft clicking from overhead, and felt a rush of cool air. The floor rumbled again. He bolted forward without thinking. The door was closing!

  Angling his shoulder so that he just slid through the narrowing gap, he rolled onto his back and yanked at his backpack. He pulled his feet clear just as the wall sealed behind him. Panting for a moment, he slowly pushed to his feet. The floor in the room felt oddly rubbery. The tug on his body was more intense. It pulled toward the dim center of the room. He resisted, inching his way back toward the smooth wall. Pushing up against it, he ran a hand over where the edge of the doorway had been. It appeared as smooth and unbroken as it had been when he first approached the other side. There wasn’t the slightest hint of a crease or seam. What was this place?

  He turned again to face the center of the room. The force pulling at him seemed to ebb and flow, like the pull of an ocean current, and the room was filled with spidery, luminescent lines. He breathed in deeply, trying to calm the rapid beat of his heart.

  “Okay!” he called into the room. “I’m here. Show yourself.” No answer.

  What he saw made no sense. At first glance, the room appeared empty except for the glowing lines. Upon closer inspection, he could make out a swirling mass near its center, a place where all the spider lines seemed to converge to form a miniature dust-devil or a funnel cloud. The dull glow in the room was provided solely by the glowing, spidery lines. There was no visible light source at all. What’s more, the spidery lines were moving.

  He leaned close to the nearest one and could see it was formed by streaming lines of glowing number combinations. The combinations gapped, but the movement of the strings was fast enough to make the lines appear unbroken. Bolts of electricity crackled between these lines. The whole room seemed to pulse slightly, in harmony with the ebb and flow of the light. Suddenly, the funnel, or dust-devil, or whatever it was in the center of the room sprang outward, exploding in a bright flash. Willoughby saw that the floor near the base of the funnel had begun to ripple, as if it had liquefied. The pull in the room increased and light dimmed. Willoughby remembered the strange, undulating voice: “Don’t fight it! It will only make the journey more difficult.” But he couldn’t help himself. He pushed harder against the wall.

  Every muscle in his body strained as he fought against the invisible force of the pull. He tried to push to his feet, but found he couldn’t move. While the room itself was growing steadily cooler, sweat poured down his face. What had he done? How could he get himself out of here?<
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  He slid sideways. His eyes adjusting so that he saw the room more clearly. It was a huge room, probably extending the whole length and width of the building. Large, steel braces anchored the walls about every 10 to 15 yards. They angled in slightly. Arcs of electricity shot from the braces and ping-pong around, zapping other glowing number lines and braces. The vortex in the center of the room swirled faster. Flashes of bright light shot from it like solar flares. Each time these flares contracted, the pull drew him in closer to the vortex. The floor began to vibrate and then seemed to liquefy. He felt a yank and flew into the air.

  “Hey!” he started, but a bolt of electricity zapped him before he could say more. He felt his muscles involuntarily seize up. The room exploded in a blinding kaleidoscope of sparks. He spun like a weed in a wind funnel. Folds of glowing, chaotic number strings boiled around him on all sides. A second bolt of electricity zapped, spinning him toward a crack of bright spark.

  He tried to scream as he hit the crack, but no sound escaped his throat. He tensed, gritting his teeth. The air around him grew heavy, like molasses. He couldn’t breathe—he was suffocating! His eyes blurred. He felt pain in his chest and then an intense cold, as if he were freezing to death from the inside. He wanted to shout, scream, kick, but he felt as though massive g-forces were crushing the life from him.

  Cold gave way to a sensation of burning heat. He felt as if he were being literally ripped apart by some force, his skin and muscle and bone being stretched to their limit. Then, suddenly, his body snapped back together. He could suck in breath. It was as if he had been pulled through a tiny hole and his whole being had turned to rubber for a split-second. His knee bounced against something, and then his hands hit it. It was hard, damp, and smooth. It didn’t move, though the room still seemed to be spinning around him. Was it the floor? Gasping for breath, he opened his mouth to scream, and promptly retched, though there was little in his stomach to come out. After several moments of dry heaves, he realized he was shaking uncontrollably.

  He became aware suddenly that this was no longer the room he had stepped into atop the Certus Grove building. The floor no longer glowed, and though it was mostly smooth, it was cold and had occasional dips and rises. It felt like rock! He slowly felt around in the dark, probing his body. He seemed to be in one piece. He couldn’t feel any blood anywhere, and everything seemed to work. As soon as the white spots cleared from his eyes, he pushed to a sitting position. He became aware of a dim light somewhere ahead. He panted, letting his eyes further adjust.

  Was he in some kind of a cave?

  6

  Window of Wonder

  Willoughby didn’t move again for a long moment. The space directly in front of him seemed dimly lit by a distant light, and roughly hewn. It felt like a tunnel of some sort. He cautiously grabbed at the rough wall a foot or two to his right and inched his way up to a standing position. His muscles trembled, jerking in brief spasms. He felt dizzy and had to lean back against the wall to keep from falling, taking in deep, even breaths until his heartbeat calmed and he felt some semblance of strength returning to his limbs. He wiped sweat from his forehead.

  “Where am I?” he yelled. “That was just loads of fun! Show yourself! Where have you taken me? How did I get here?”

  After a short pause, a voice spoke. It seemed to come from all around him at once. “There’s no need to shout, Willoughby.” It was the voice with the British accent, but clear this time. “When you’re out of the tunnel, we’ll talk.”

  Willoughby noted for the first time a dim glow flickering behind him. He turned. A shrinking version of the swirling vortex, intersected by crimson arcs, dissipated slowly into a cloud of lazily rolling mist. The mist lit up occasionally with crackling arcs as it melted slowly into the rock floor and was gone. Willoughby stared after it for a long moment, then turned and peered down the tunnel in the opposite direction. Where was he?

  “Any more surprises?” he called out. “If I walk forward, I won’t fall through to some other weird place, will I? I’ve had my fill of surprises today.”

  “You’ll be amazed,” the voice said, and then went silent.

  Breathing deeply and swallowing hard to try to dislodge the lump in his throat, Willoughby stepped cautiously forward, dragging a hand over the side of the tunnel. He rounded a narrow bend and noted that the walls had smoothed. He was walking down what now seemed to be a polished corridor. The light brightened a little, but seemed to flicker as though through heavy foliage, or underwater.

  Willoughby felt shaky and confused, but there was also another feeling: excitement. He was intrigued. How had he gotten here? What had they used to transport him? This couldn’t be the Certus Grove anymore. Would there be marvels or dangers at the end of this corridor?

  He steadied himself as he reached the end of the polished corridor and stepped out onto a steel platform of some sort. He was in an enormous cavern. It was easily as large as an airplane hangar. His feet clinked on the platform, and he noted a metal staircase winding away to the left as he pushed cautiously to the platform’s thin railing. He looked down. The space below seemed to be part natural and part man-made. Three sides of the room were roughly-hewn out of rock. The fourth side, however, took his breath away. It consisted of a massive window. The three-story high wall of glass was broken into oblong squares by strips of metal webbing. The webbing bowed out gently, curving maybe 15 degrees from the window’s center to its edges. The size of the window wall was easily 120 feet in width by 40 feet in height. But it was he view behind the glass that stole the show. The view was almost beyond his ability to take in. Undulating colors and hues filtered through a great expanse of water. Willoughby stared in awe. Framed in the squares of glass was what appeared to be a thriving coral reef—though unlike any reef that he had ever seen—unlike any reef that existed in his world.

  The seascape stretched on for what seemed miles. Thick pockets of seaweed covered low coral mounds that were both odd and vaguely familiar. The scene, illuminated by hazy streaks of sunlight, was dotted with bizarre plants, and teemed with odd, darting creatures. His mind recognized some of the strange shapes from books he had devoured as a child—books on prehistoric plants and primordial seas. But this wasn’t a page from a book. This seascape was alive!

  He forced his eyes away from the panoramic window and took in the rest of the room. Its smooth metal floor was divided into neat cubicles to the left, and opened into a sort of reception space to the right. In addition to soft lights over a smattering of small desks, orb lights lit a number of sitting areas. A sort of twinkling glow from the seascape also bathed the room. Willoughby’s eyes focused on a rather portly man who glanced up from a particularly central overstuffed chair.

  “Ah! You’ve navigated the way at last!” He finished draining his teacup before pushing promptly to his feet. Bending over, he dropped the teacup and saucer onto a low table. With hands clasped behind his back, he straightened and peered up again. His smile was good-natured and genuine. “It is a pleasure to meet you in person, Willoughby. Sorry for the rough transport. There’s no easy way through the conduit. I do have advice to help you relax for the trip back, but the initial trip is, by necessity, a bit of a baptism by fire. You did land in one piece, I hope. You might want to double check. Sometimes things don’t come properly together. We wouldn’t want a toe, or ear, or some other critical part poking out where it shouldn’t be, would we?” He seemed to be enjoying Willoughby’s discomfort. After a short laugh, he continued; “But where are my manners… Come on; come down. Let’s sit and chat a bit. That’s why we brought you here. You did, by the way, endure the trip admirably for a first timer. Your vital signs never stayed in the red for more than one or two seconds. It probably seemed a bit longer than that to you, but I assure you that your fate was never in question—speaking of which, I’m sure you have a few.”

  Willoughby stared at the man. “A few what?”

 
; “Questions, of course.” The man continued smiling.

  “Uh, yeah…you can start by telling me where I am and how I got here.”

  “Where do you think you are?” The man seemed to be enjoying himself.

  Willoughby was too shell-shocked to react. He simply glared. The man didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. He was tall, with a large frame—considerably larger, in fact, than Willoughby had imagined from the voice. With his crisp accent and size, one could easily imagine a walrus moustache, a hunting rifle tucked under one arm, and a dog the size of a small donkey panting at the man’s knee. The man pulled his smile inward as he studied Willoughby with a bright, curious eye.

  “Which do you find most overwhelming—the mystery of who I am, the mode of your transport, or the wonders you see before you? It has been a while since we’ve had such a young perspective.”

  “What do I see before me?” Willoughby pointed to the water scene outside the glass wall. “It can’t be real.”

  The man’s eyes literally danced. “Oh, but it is! I guessed that this view would carry particular fascination for a man of your age. Please, come down for a closer look. It gets even more fascinating.”

  “What happened to the Certus Grove building?”

  “It’s right where it should be, Willoughby. It hasn’t moved an inch.” The man’s eyes twinkled.

  “That’s another thing—how do you know my name?”

  “I know everything about you, my friend. I’ve been watching you for almost three years. I funded the contest that offered a million-dollar prize for the solution to the Riemann Hypothesis. I funded the construction of Antonio’s Corner Barber on the 16th Street Corridor. You’re younger than our average recruit. We had to watch you for a while. We had to be sure.”