by Danny Tobey
“I knew that,” he said, sounding hurt. “I don’t hear you offering any brilliant ideas.”
“Just give me a minute to think.”
“Take your time,” Miles said. “I feel really comfortable here.”
I closed my eyes. This was just logic. And logic was just math.
I was good at this.
Say that Truth equals +1. And a Lie is –1. Ask the lying brother, get a negative answer. Ask the truthful brother, get a positive answer.
But we don’t know which one’s which . . .
Come on . . . think.
It was a magic trick: we had to turn a lie into truth. In other words: how does a negative number become a positive number? . . .
Multiply it by another negative! Two negatives equal a positive!
So if you ask the liar, you have –1. How do you throw in another negative? Do the opposite of what he says! If he says go left, you go right! –1 times –1 equals +1.
But how do you know you’re talking to the liar??
I mean, if you ask the truthful brother, then you’re multiplying –1 times +1. You’re back to the wrong answer.
Shit!
So the question is: How do you make sure that second negative is in the equation?
Come on . . .
I felt my brain stretching, groaning . . .
Almost there . . .
“I got it,” I said.
Miles and Sarah stared at me.
“We ask either statue what his brother would say, and then we do the opposite.”
“What?”
“Huh?”
“Think it through. We don’t know who is who. So if you ask the liar what his brother would say, his brother would tell us the truth, but the liar would lie about his brother’s answer. So we do the opposite!”
+1 × –1 × –1 = +1!
“Or, say we ask the truth-teller. His brother would lie, and he’d truthfully tell us which way his brother recommended. So again, we do the opposite.”
–1 × +1 × –1 = +1!
It was kind of like a cartoon. Both their eyes drifted upward as they each worked it through. It clicked for Sarah first.
“Yes!” she said. She smiled. “How did you think of that so fast?”
“It’s just logic,” I said.
“Impressive,” she replied. I felt all warm and goose-bumpy.
“Yeah, it’s great,” Miles said. “Except for one thing. THEY’RE FUCKING STATUES! You can’t ask them anything. You just push a button and they move. Jesus Christ, and I’m the professional academic?”
Shit.
I felt the air go out of my balloon. He was right, of course. I’d been so excited about the logic that I’d forgotten the reality of the situation. Still, the answer was so clever, so pure, so . . . V&D. It had to be right. I couldn’t see any other way.
The button. The gears and chains inside. That was the statue’s guts—gears and chains, not blood and viscera. The joint at the elbow, hidden in the seams of his robe . . .
I walked over to the statue on the left and grabbed his head. I traced my finger over the line between his neck and his robes . . . could it be?
We hadn’t come this far to give up or turn around.
I closed my eyes and twisted. Nothing, at first, and then I felt a gritty giving-way, as if the twisting was pulverizing the bits of dust filling the groove, and then the king’s head turned. It rotated to my right under my hands, the sound of a mechanism clacking and trucking inside the statue, until his head wouldn’t turn anymore. I opened my eyes and looked. The statue’s head was now rotated to the right, and his lips fit perfectly against the opening of his brother’s ear.
I looked at Miles and Sarah and gave them a wide smile.
“You see?” I sounded like a giddy idiot. But it was awesome!
I stepped in front of the second brother, the one who was now receiving instructions, metaphorically speaking, from the lips of his brother nestled in his right ear.
“Ask one statue what his brother would say,” Sarah whispered.
She came over and put her hand on top of mine, and together we pressed down on the button in front of the second statue. His hand was already pointing to his right, from our previous attempt. There was a clicking—higher-pitched this time—and the arm ticked all the way to his left.
“YES!!” Miles shouted. He pumped his arms in victory. “You did it, by God, Jeremy, you really did it!” He ran and jumped toward the left-hand door and put his hand on the knob.
“MILES!” we both screamed at once. “MILES, NO!!” Were we seconds from death? By what means? Would the room start hissing with gas? Or maybe the opposite: the air would suck out until we were gasping on the floor, a couple of heartbeats away from the penal fire . . .
Would it be quick? Would it hurt?
Miles turned around, grinning.
“Just kidding,” he said. “Ask one statue what his brother would say”—here he winked—“and do the opposite.”
Miles walked to the right-hand door and, without looking back at us, turned the knob.
There was a release of air, a quiet hissing, and then the door opened inward.
34
We passed into a small room, a library with a nautical theme. There were paintings of lighthouses and schooners on the walls. A globe in one corner, an astrolabe in another. The ceiling was painted with a nighttime mural: stars and a moon.
But what was truly notable about the room was the split that ran across it lengthwise, cutting everything in half: the far wall, a painting, the green carpet, even a chair in its path. The chair was silk: green, gold, and blue; its two halves sat on either side of the rift. You could see the yellow stuffing, but the split was perfect; the stuffing didn’t bulge or spill out from the halves.
There was an archway on the far wall, with a bar across the door. Miles walked over and gave it a good shove.
“Locked.”
I knelt down and looked at the split in the floor. The edges were sharp. I tried to see into it. It seemed like the bottom, far below, was moving.
Sarah held out a coin and let go.
A few seconds later, we heard a faint splash.
“It’s water,” she said.
She put a hand on both sides and leaned in. Her head disappeared.
“Be careful.”
She ignored me.
“I think there’s a current.”
She was right: when I looked closely, the water was moving toward the far wall.
To my right was a giant mirror in a gold frame. Below it, a glass bowl sat on a table, filled with small planks of wood.
“Very cute,” Miles said.
He was suddenly next to me, with that self-satisfied look on his face. He leaned forward, resting his hands on a wooden chair.
“What?”
“The moon above. The water below. It’s the classic triad. They’re practically shouting it at us.”
“Huh?”
Miles shook his head patiently.
“The moon. Water. What is the one thing that symbolizes both in nearly every culture?”
Suddenly, Miles grabbed the chair and shouted with glee: “MIRRORS!”
He swung the chair with all his force into the colossal mirror on the wall.
There was a tremendous explosion. Glass flew everywhere.
“A-HA!” Miles shouted victoriously.
He was holding the remains of the chair in midair.
Behind the mirror, there was a plain wall.
The last pieces fell with a jangle.
“Oh,” Miles said. He looked at us. “Oops.”
Sarah and I exchanged glances.
“Oops?”
“Oops.”
“You just killed the mirror.”
“I said oops.”
Sarah scrunched her face into a perfect Miles impression. “It’s the classic triad,” she lectured, pretending to push a pair of glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Piss off,” M
iles said.
Sarah and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“It would’ve been cool,” Miles mumbled. His face was turning bright red. “Come on—if there was a tunnel or something behind the mirror? That would have been awesome. What the hell do you know anyway . . . think you’re some kind of genius, just ’cause you played with dolls in the other room . . .”
He stomped off to the far corner of the room and plopped in a chair, sulking.
We nearly doubled over, laughing.
Finally, I wiped my eyes and walked the room.
On the bookshelf, I found a model ship, the kind you’d see inside a glass bottle, but larger.
“Hey Miles,” I said. “Mind if I look at this, or did you want to smash it first?”
“Screw you.”
I took the ship off its base and turned it over.
“Weird.”
On both sides, several planks were missing, like the smile of a very bad boxer.
I grinned.
I took the boat to the table under the broken mirror. I grabbed a plank of wood from the glass bowl and held it up to the boat. It was a perfect fit.
Sarah clapped.
Every plank snapped into place, not one to spare. The boat looked whole again, except that the old ship was made of pale balsa wood; the new pieces were cherry brown. But the problem was cosmetic—the boat felt perfect, balanced and new.
“Cool.”
“I want to put it in the water,” Sarah said.
“Well obviously,” Miles mumbled from his corner. He still wasn’t making eye contact.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
“You would,” Miles muttered.
“Could you grow up, please?” Sarah said. “If you know something, say it.”
“It’s the Ship of Theseus, clearly,” Miles said.
“The ship of what?”
“Theseus. It’s a paradox. An ancient puzzle.”
“Oh for God’s sake. Enlighten us.”
“The Ship of Theseus was getting worn out, right? But they kept it going by replacing planks. Take an old plank out, put a new one in. So the question is, when does it stop being the Ship of Theseus?”
“I don’t get it.”
“If you replace one plank, is it still the Ship of Theseus?”
“Of course.”
“What if you replace half the planks? Is it still the Ship of Theseus?”
“Yes.”
“What if you replace all the planks?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, now say someone picks up all the discarded planks and builds a second boat. Which one is the Ship of Theseus?”
Sarah and I answered at the same time.
“The old one,” I said.
“The new one,” she said.
“Exactly.” Miles rubbed his hands together. “It’s not just about some boat. It’s about what it means to be something.” He pointed at the smashed wood on the floor. “Is that still a chair? Is that still a mirror? Are you the same person you were a year ago? Is this boat the same one you found on that shelf?”
I threw my hands up.
“Great. Typical philosophy. We could debate all night, and we’d still have no idea what to do.”
“I have an idea,” Miles said. “Take those damn planks out and drop it in the water.”
“Are you crazy?” Sarah snapped.
“It makes perfect sense,” Miles answered. “Think about the V and D. What they’re doing. They don’t want the ship to change. They want the same old ship to keep sailing, forever and ever. They don’t want to turn the voyage over to a new crew, a new ship, new planks. You put those pieces in, the philosophy’s all wrong.”
“But the physics is right. My boat won’t sink. Yours will.”
“Trust me.”
“This from the guy who smashed the mirror.”
“I’m telling you.”
“We get one chance,” I said. “It’s twenty feet down.”
“You’re right,” Miles said. He sighed. “Let me just see one thing.”
He took the boat from my hands. He pulled out the brown slats of wood.
“Hmm . . .” he said, thinking hard, or rather pretending to. Before I could say anything, he took a massive step and dropped the boat right into the split.
“YOU BASTARD!”
We ran to the edge. The boat went down with a splash then sank underwater.
“You fucking arrogant prick,” Sarah shouted. “How dare you? People’s lives are at stake. Maybe you don’t care about them, but don’t you care about yourself?”
“I have self-esteem issues,” Miles said.
“Shut up and look!” I shouted.
The boat had hit the water and submerged from the force, but now it popped back up and rocked its way in the slow current toward the far end.
“I’ll be damned,” Miles said.
I started to get excited, but then I saw the bubbles escaping the boat. I could imagine the water flooding into the hull.
“Oh shit.”
The boat started to sink.
“NO.”
It was still moving, slower than we needed. Halfway down the stream, it was halfway submerged.
“Shit,” I said. “Shit, shit, shit. Come on.”
“Go . . . go . . . go . . .” Sarah called.
“Oh no,” Miles said.
He was looking at the far end of the stream.
“What?” I slid toward the end with him. “What is that?”
There was a tunnel at the end of the stream, tall enough for the boat to pass through, sails and all. But what Miles saw was spanning the length of that entrance: a wire, pulled tight across the passage, near the top of the opening.
A wonderful phrase from my childhood adventure books suddenly came to mind:
Booby trap.
“Miles,” I said, “what do you think happens if our sail hits that string?”
He shrugged. All the smugness was gone. He met my eyes and made a motion with his hands that said: ka-boom.
Sarah was a couple of feet away, her eyes locked on the boat, chanting: “Float . . . float . . . float . . .”
“Sarah.”
I showed her the wire.
Her eyes went wide.
She looked back at our boat and chanted: “Sink . . . sink . . . sink . . .”
I joined her.
What else could we do—run out the way we came in?
Miles was already there. He tried the knob and cursed.
The boat was inches from the end. It was almost three-quarters underwater, still drifting in the current, the sails still high enough to hook the filament. The bubbles were pouring out the sides.
“Sink . . . sink . . . sink . . . SINK . . .”
The ship hit the end, sputtering air, drowning, and by a fraction of an inch the sail cleared the wire.
The boat disappeared into the shadows of the passage.
This triggered a rumbling that began far below and worked its way up to us. It seemed to be inside the wall. There was a clicking sound, and the bar slid across the massive door, back into its socket. Moments later, a panel clicked open in the bookshelf, and the boat was deposited back in its spot.
Miles marched to the door and gave it a heavy push. It swung open.
He shot us a victory smirk and strode through.
I looked at Sarah and shook my head.
“You know, he’s right half the time. The problem is, we don’t know which half.”
She took my hand and smiled wearily.
“Let’s just get through this, okay? Then we can go somewhere, get a nice little house, have kids, grow old. What do you say?”
“Where would we go?”
“I don’t know. How about Jamaica?”
“What do you think of Texas?”
“Texas?” She gave a why not? shrug. “I’ve never been to Texas.”
She kept holding my hand, and we walked under the arch.
35
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br /> We found ourselves in a room that was somehow vast and claustrophobic.
Vast, because the far wall—and the only other door—stretched away from us like a hallway in a bad dream. The kind that keeps extending the more you run.
Claustrophobic, because the side walls and low ceiling loomed in on us. Every few feet I saw narrow slots that ran from the floor up the side walls and across the ceiling. There were elegant sconces with candles on the walls. Miles pulled out his Zippo and lit a few.
To my left, I noticed a bizarre mosaic on the wall, made out of tiny slick tiles. It traced the form of a demon, a grotesque creature with massive lips and hands, and an odd phallus that hung limp.
Miles walked up next to me.
“Ugly little fucker,” he said.
Sarah was across from us, examining a mural on the opposite wall. This one resembled a subway map but with no stops labeled. She studied the branching paths.
I put my hand on the demon and let my fingers trace over the tiles.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“It’s a totem of some kind. A god from some ancient religion.”
“Which one? What does it mean?”
Miles squinted his eyes.
“South American, maybe. Or Pacific Islander . . . Looks like one of those Easter Island heads.”
“You guys have no idea what you’re talking about,” a voice said from behind us. It was Sarah. She was laughing.
She started walking toward us, and her foot came down on a floorboard that sank inward with a series of sickening clicks, like an old man cracking his knuckles. Sarah’s head jerked up at us. Her eyes were wide.
“What did I just do?” she asked.
Before we could guess, there was a grinding noise from within the walls. My fingers were still on the tiles. I felt a vibration pass in a wave under my hand. There was a tremendous noise, like a machine rumbling to life, and then there was a release—the noise a carnival ride makes after it’s raised you up ten stories and the claws suddenly spring open.
We heard a screaming metallic cry. It started slow and then accelerated, rising in pitch. Then there was a flash of mirror and the blade—as tall and wide as a man—came tearing out of the slot with blinding speed. It arced down, sliced a hair above the floor in the center of the room, then disappeared into the slot on the far wall. The screaming slowed, then stopped.
Then it built up again, and a moment later the blade tore back across the room, straining its cable like the pendulum of an asylum clock.
