by Jake Bible
“Snotty?” I asked.
“Not that either, thank you very much!” the door snapped.
“Joe, stop antagonizing the door,” Alya said.
“If I had a chit every time someone said that to me…” I let the rest trail off.
“You are here for the next portion of your quest,” the door said. “Your fifth trial, I believe.”
“You nailed it, door,” I said.
“Peter,” the door responded.
“Excuse me?” I asked, trying to sound like the door, but ending up sounding like a bad actor in a local production of “Who’s Tied To The Wormhole Today?” I love that play. Just hilarious.
“My name is Peter,” the door said.
“I wasn’t aware doors had names,” I said.
“Have you ever asked one?” it replied.
“Well…no,” I admitted. “Hasn’t ever occurred to me. Do all doors have names?”
“All doors have names,” Peter said.
“Huh, you learn something new every day,” I said. “So, Peter, my door, can you give me a hint as to what my fifth trial is? Maybe a quick peek behind the door, or, uh, you, to see what lies ahead?”
“I am the fifth trial,” Peter said. “I will pose a series of six questions wherein you will—”
“Hold the fo on,” I said, raising a hand. “What do you mean you are my fifth trial? My fifth trial is a door? Just a door.”
“Joe, don’t insult the door either,” Alya warned. “Doors are more than just a way to get from one space to another. In the labyrinth, they are sacred and holy. They mark the passage from, well…”
“One space to another?” I smirked.
“I should warn you that part of your trial is attitude,” Peter said. “If I feel you are not taking this seriously then you will not pass.”
“What if I burn you down?” I asked. “I’m good at burning stuff down. Just ask the last door, and the cabin attached to it. Poof. Up in smoke.”
“I do not burn, I already said that,” Peter said. “I am not some cheap piece of wood that was picked up at a local hardware store. I was hand forged in the fires of Caga.”
“Hey, I’ve been to Caga,” I said. “Or to one of the orbiting stations. Had lunch there once. Nearly got killed there, too, but that’s a long story.”
“Which we do not have time for,” Alya said. “Peter, can you explain the rules of the trial, please? I promise Joe will be quiet.”
“Lips be zipped,” I said.
“Very well,” Peter said and cleared his…throat? Do doors have throats? Maybe talking ones do. “I will pose a series of six questions, one by one. You may ask me one clarifying question, which I will answer honestly, then you must give me the answer to my question to move on to the next. No topic is off limits, so no question is off limits. But I must warn you that I will be extremely literal during this trial. Sarcasm will not be taken into account.”
“I’m foed,” I said.
“Quite,” Peter said.
“Okay, Peter, let’s have the first question,” I said. “Lay it on me.”
“How old are you?” Peter asked.
“Seriously?” I laughed.
“That was your clarifying question,” Peter replied.
“What? No way!” I exclaimed.
“Warning, you just asked a second question,” Peter said. “I will ignore it, but any subsequent questions will be counted against you for future questions. If you go beyond your allotted questions then you will fail this trial and have to start at the beginning.”
“Time out!” I yelled and got to my feet.
“There is no time out,” Peter said.
“Well, everything I’m about to say and ask is directed at Alya, not you,” I said. “I get to talk to her all I want.”
“No, you do not,” Peter said. “Your trial has begun, and you will address me only. Any questions directed at her will be considered official questions.”
“Son of a gump!” I yelled and closed on Peter.
I was gonna rip the knocker right off his smug grained face. Not that he had a face. Or a mouth. I wondered how he even spoke. I would have asked him, but…
“How old am I,” I stated. “Not a question!”
“I know,” Peter said. “I can hear the difference. I am a professional, you know.”
So many retorts, so many that needed to be formed as a question.
I was about to state my actual age, but stopped when I realized I wasn’t sure if he meant me, Joe Laribeau, or me, Salvage Merc One. There was a difference. Too bad my smart mouth wasted the question that would have clarified that.
Sheezus, I had to deal with five more questions after that one? Ugh.
“Older than my battle legs,” I responded.
Peter started to reply then clammed up. He mumbled a few words, almost like he was conferring with someone, then cleared his nonexistent door throat and said, “That was not the answer I was looking for, but it is technically correct.”
“Bam!” I shouted and pumped a fist into the air. Alya shook her head. “Oh, I found a loophole, bitches!”
“Yes, how good for you,” Peter said. “Now, for the second question. Where are you exactly?”
“Right the fo here,” I answered.
“No, what I meant was…” he stopped speaking, started mumbling, began arguing with himself, then let out the longest, most disgusted sigh I have ever heard any being make in my entire life. Which says a lot considering Mgurn was my assistant. “Yes. That is correct. Technically, you are exactly there.”
“Yeah I am,” I said. “Question three. Bring it.”
“What is the meaning of life?” Peter asked.
“Ooo, good one,” I said. “Stinks of cheating, but I know you’re ticked because I gamed your system and now you’re looking for a little payback.”
I rubbed my chin. It didn’t help me think, but it seemed like the right thing to do.
What the fo was the meaning of life? I could have gone with the obvious Adamsian answer, but it was too on the nose. I could have said love or learning or nothing at all.
“Depends,” I said.
“On what?” Peter asked.
“Nice fourth question,” I said. “Let me think on it.”
“What? No, that wasn’t the fourth question!” Peter exclaimed.
“Your what was the fifth question,” I said. “I assume that since you did not wait for my answer to the fourth that it has become null and void, and we instantly skip to the fifth. So, in answer to your question of what, I reply ‘nice fourth question. Let me think on it’. That’s what I said.”
Peter was literally shaking with anger in his frame. If doors had ears, he would have had steam pouring from them.
“Time for the sixth question,” I said.
“Oh, to hell with it,” Peter said. “You’ll just make a mockery of the last question. Just go away.”
Peter opened up, and we could see a vast field of poppies beyond. The day was bright and looked warm and inviting. I was instantly suspicious.
“That’s it? I’m done?” I asked.
“I certainly am, I could care less whether you are or not,” Peter said. “Go through me and never come this way again.”
“Okey dokey,” I said and nodded to Alya. “Time to go.”
“I gathered that,” she said and followed me through the door.
It slammed closed so fast I felt a whoosh of wind on my ass.
“I can’t believe you harassed a door into letting you pass a trial,” Alya said. “No wonder the artifact is putting you through this.”
“Is that a compliment?” I asked as we stood in the poppy field.
“I don’t know yet,” she said.
“Fair enough,” I replied. I took a deep breath. “Damn, this air smells nice.”
“It does,” Alya agreed. “I miss fresh air.”
“You’re smelling some right now,” I said.
“No, Joe, I am not,” Alya insiste
d. “Again, except for the iron door’s entryway, none of this is real. This air is purely a construct within your brain, placed there by the labyrinth.”
“You really take the magic out of things,” I said.
“Let’s just walk,” Alya said. “The trial has started, we just have to figure out what it is.”
“Maybe roll some poppy leaves and smoke them?” I said as we moved deeper into the field.
“That’s not how it works, Joe,” Alya replied.
“I know, I was kidding,” I said. “You chew poppy leaves.”
“Sheezus,” she muttered.
We’d gone half a kilometer when my legs got all wobbly.
“Hold up, hold up,” I gasped, finding it hard to breathe. “Whoa, slow down.”
“What is it?” Alya asked. She looked around in alarm. “Do you see something? I don’t. Do you hear something? What is it?”
“I’m just exhausted,” I said. “I have to sit down.”
“You can’t sit down,” Alya protested as I sat down. “Joe! We have to keep moving!”
“Yeah, yeah, we will, we will,” I said, waving a floppy hand at her. How’d my hand get so floppy? Floppy, floppy, floppy.
“Joe, get up,” Alya barked. “Get up, Joe.”
“Saying the words in a different order won’t make me get up,” I said. “Resting long enough to have the energy to get up will get me up.”
I yawned. It went on for a long, long while.
“Whoo boy,” I said. “I am bushed. How about I take a quick nap and then we’ll get going?”
“No!” Alya shouted. “Joe! Get up!”
She was still shouting, pretty loudly too, when the old brainpan decide it was time to check out and go night night.
Falling asleep in a poppy field. Huh, I think I saw that holo vid once…
Twenty-One
Here’s the thing, I had no idea if the labyrinth was actually real or not, despite what Alya had been saying. Honest to Eight Million Gods. Sure, it seemed real, in an unreal way, but that didn’t mean foing crud. But, truth be told, as far as I really knew, I was asleep on my ship waiting for the backdoor wormhole portal to open, or maybe I had never left the SMC headquarters. That was how much I distrusted anything and everything my senses told me.
So, the idea of being stuck in a nightmare inside something that may not have even been real to begin with kind of messed with my mind in a way that even the other trials hadn’t. It sent me spiraling down into a very dark hole. My psyche went to a place that I hadn’t looked at since I was a kid. A terrifying place.
The box sat in the middle of the room, its hand crank jutting out like an unfinished arm with that small, red knob on the end taunting me. It said that all I had to do was turn the crank a few times, and the fun would begin. Oh, what? That didn’t do it. Maybe give it another crank. And another. And another.
How about a creepy tune to help you along? Monkey chases the weasel. Yeah. That tune. Nothing says wholesome, child-friendly fun like a song where a monkey chases a weasel around some bush so it can catch the weasel and kill it with its bare hands.
Oh, yeah, I’m talking about a jack-in-the-box.
Red and white box made of tin. Faded scenes on each side, something with happy clowns and smiling children. Except not so smiling. Screaming? Yep. Screaming. Why? Because the happy clowns had glowing laser knives that sizzled and sparked as the blood on their edges slowly smoldered into wafts of smoke.
“I’d like to wake up now,” I said as I stood there, my back against the wall of the small, dark room. “Hello? Not a fan of the child torture horror schtick. Hello? Labyrinth? I’d like to use my free pass now, please.”
I didn’t have a free pass, but it was worth a shot.
There was no answer from the labyrinth. Not directly. Instead, the hand crank began to crank on its own, sans hand. I sure as fo wasn’t touching it. My back was still firmly planted against the wall. I had zero intention of getting anywhere near that box.
The labyrinth had other ideas.
My feet began to slide, and I quickly realized that the wall behind me was slowly moving, pushing me to the center of the room, pushing me to where the self-cranking box sat. Pushing me towards my nightmare. Or one of my nightmares. We all have a multitude of fears and phobias, right? Right?
Around and around that mulberry bush the monkey and the weasel went. Over and over and over.
I pushed back against the wall, but there was no stopping it.
“Fine!” I shouted and stepped away from the wall. “You want me to do what? Pick up the box? Crank it until it pops open and I see the freakish clown head on a spring? Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll play your stupid game, you dumb labyrinth.”
I took a tentative step away from the wall, and it stopped moving. I leaned back once more just for a test, and the wall began to slide itself and me towards the ever-cranking box.
“Just checking,” I said and moved back away from the wall. It’s grinding came to a stop, and I took a deep breath. “One foot in front of the other.”
There it sat, self-cranking, that annoying music playing over and over and over. The box seemed so small when I was up against the wall, but as I got closer, that illusion changed. It was much bigger than I had originally thought. Maybe a meter square.
I took my steps carefully, my eyes locked onto the box. I waited for that crank to stop moving and the lid to snap open, whatever horror held inside free to rip me to shreds. But the lid stayed put. The box was waiting for me to do the honors, I was certain of that. You can’t be a terrifying hell toy without an audience. It’s in the terrifying hell toy nightmare rulebook or something.
Each step took me closer to the box, of course, but at the same time, it seemed to take me farther away. It was hard to comprehend. I’d get nearer, it’d get bigger, then slide just a hair out of reach. It became so frustrating, and the Eight Million Gods damned music wasn’t helping, that I started shouting at the thing to stay still.
It didn’t. It grew, it slid away, it continued to crank itself, the music never stopped. The music never stopped. The music never stopped.
I reached to unsling my H16 and blow the box right the fo away, but I did not have an H16. I had two long, neon pink balloons twisted into a simulacrum of an H16, but no actual plasma carbine multi-weapon.
My hand instinctively slapped at my thigh for my KL09. The holster was there, but no heavy pistol. My hand cannon had become a banana.
So I did what any normal person would do in my situation, I peeled the banana, ate it, since I was foing hungry, tossed the empty peel at the box, grabbed up my balloon carbine, put the rubbery butt to my shoulder, and kept walking.
That’s what a normal person would do, right?
With the barrel of the balloon carbine pointed squarely at the box, I cleared my throat, mostly because of the banana remnants, but also because of the soul-filling terror that still had me in its grip, and said, “Time for the monkey to catch the weasel.”
Wasn’t my best line, but not bad considering the insane situation I was presented with.
The crank stopped cranking. I stopped walking. The box began to shudder.
“Huh,” I muttered. “Usually, it pops right out.”
What happened next wasn’t exactly what I expected. I was ready for that not so little anymore lid to snap open and the clown head on a spring to jump out and make horrible laughing noises as it bounced and bobbled. I was totally prepped for that to happen. I was going to make pew pew noises at the clown head and see if maybe the dream hell considered that lethal force.
But the lid didn’t snap open, and there was no clown head to pew pew at. Instead, a black goo began to ooze from around the lid’s seams. It seeped onto the floor, pooling down around the impotent box.
I took a couple steps closer. I couldn’t help myself, I was curious. It was always the clown head on a spring that wigged me out as a kid, so seeing black goo come out was sort of a relief.
Until the
smell hit me.
“Oh, son of a gump,” I hissed and began to back away as fast as possible.
My back hit the wall, and I realized too late that the wall had been following me the whole time. Creeping closer and closer, making sure I was boxed in when the big reveal happened.
Clown head on a spring, even a possessed by the Seven Satans type, was infinitely better than what was oozing onto the ground around the box.
“B’flo’do,” I muttered. “Foing B’flo’do.”
The inbred cousin to the B’clo’nos, the B’flo’do were a feral race that drained anything, whether alive or machine, of its energy, leaving only desiccated husks or broken tech in their wake. B’flo’do sucked. Literally and figuratively.
I cocked the balloon carbine and stood my ground. Not that I had much choice since the wall behind me was only a centimeter from my back. But I liked to put on a confident front.
“Don’t even think about it!” I shouted as the black goo finished seeping from the box and began to take shape. It wasn’t much of a shape, just sort of less of a pool of gunk. “Stay right the fo where you are, B’flo’do scum!”
The B’flo’do scum did not stay right the fo where it was.
“Pew pew!” I yelled as it oozed its way towards me. “Pew pew!”
It was kind of sad, all the pew pews.
I threw the balloon carbine to the ground, a little disappointed that the labyrinth didn’t turn it into a real weapon at the last second. I thought I was getting the hang of the place’s insanity, but I guess not.
I began to circle the thing, keeping my eyes on it as I side-stepped to my right. No weapons, not even a blade strapped to my calf or tucked into my boot. An energy-sucking goo monster clocking me with every step. No doors to be seen anywhere in the freaky room. I was totally foed.
“What ya gonna do, slimeball?” I snapped at the thing. “Suck down all my Joe juice?”
Yeah, I grossed myself out saying that.
I kept moving, forcing the B’flo’do to shift and reconfigure its bulk. It hadn’t quite reformed into a full blob, so my constant movement gave me some advantage. They weren’t the brightest of species, not by a long shot, so any little bit I could do to keep it off balance was worth the effort.
