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zecretsanta · 1 year

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Glimpses Under a Mask

To: @wherestarsarestillasleep From: @chessanator

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Merry Christmas, @wherestarsarestillasleep! Here’s a Kyle-focused AU fic that I hope you’ll find interesting. Enjoy the read!

Phi

Phi huddled against the cold wall of the elevator, trying to suppress the pounding in her head. It was immediately obvious that she was trapped. The impossibly thick steel doors and the manner by which she’d been brought here made sure of that. So there was nothing to do but check through her possessions and wait for further developments.

Her black flower ornament? Check. Her brooch? Check. The black bracelet clamped on her wrist? That was new. There wasn’t any way to remove it, not that Phi could see, and the display on the bracelet’s face wasn’t anything anyone would use for themselves. Instead the text – a large number ‘3’ above the word ‘pair’, all in bright green – could only possibly be intended for whatever plans her kidnappers had set out for her.

Phi only noticed the other occupant of the room when he called out to her. “Have you recovered?” the man said. He was a tall man, who would have loomed over her even if she hadn’t been sprawled on the floor, with a toned, muscular physique under his symbol-covered blue shirt. College-age, probably, or close to it. His thick and deep-black hair had fallen into a matted mess, though Phi was willing to grant that it was because of the situation they’d both woken into. That, and the identical black bracelet around the man’s left wrist, had Phi sure that this man was a victim just as much as she was.

As she inspected him more closely, the feeling grew on Phi that this man seemed ever so familiar. Had she met him before? “Sigma…” The name hit her mind just as it spilled from her lips. It was almost like this was someone she’d been expecting to meet.

“Oh?” the man replied, both his pale grey eyes staring back at her and his eyebrow rising into an arch. Then, after a moment’s reflection, he held his hand in front of his mouth in a polite chuckle. “Ah, yes. Please, call me Sigma.”

Phi introduced herself as well. Then she turned her attention back two the elevator the two of them had been imprisoned in. It wasn’t just plain shiny walls that greeted her, but innumerable small details that stood out as she looked for them properly. Brightly coloured knobs on the railing, faded but cartoony posters on the walls, a strange compartment below the elevator’s control panel. All these added up to a room that was far more than a simple elevator.

When Phi pointed this out to Sigma he raised his fingers to his chin pensively. “Hmm… It looks a lot like one of those old escape rooms,” he mused. Sigma’s voice was deep, calm, and melodic, and Phi felt herself being drawn in as he laid out his reasoning. “Perhaps our captors expect us to solve these puzzles in order to leave these rooms.”

“Possibly,” Phi replied bluntly. “But why would they do that? They went to a lot of effort to find us, knock us out, transport us here… just to have us play games? Seems unlikely.”

“We’ll only know for certain once we get out,” Sigma said. Then, as he gazed around the room, a slight, melancholic smile played at the corner of his lips. “The current circumstances aside, I wouldn’t mind the chance to participate in such an escape room. I’ve not had the chance before, you see.”

At least the guy was motivated, whatever his reasoning. Phi could appreciate that.

Together, Phi and Sigma solved the puzzles of the elevator as an efficient, well-oiled team. As the final step they’d received a key from the safe at the back of the room. When Phi found, on the elevator’s control panel, the keyhole it belonged in she’d turned to point it out to Sigma, half-expecting to have to hurry him along in using it. To her grateful surprise, though, the man she’d awoken with was already by her side. And he was already turning the key in its slot. Clearly he was as eager and driven to get those thick elevator doors open as she was herself.

But when the key reached the end of its turn with a springy click, the outcome was something entirely unexpected. The doors in front of the pair of them didn’t open, They didn’t even budge. Instead the roof of the elevator levered up with a groaning, rusty creak, opening out onto open air and giving a view up to a ceiling several times higher than the one Sigma and Phi had been trapped under.

“Looks like we’re getting out that way,” Phi stated with a resigned snort. “Gimme a boost.”

Phi’s command had been brusque but Sigma took it stoically. “Of course,” he replied, stepping towards the centre of the room. He began to drop to one knee to give Phi the boost she’d requested.

Then, just for a moment, halfway down, he froze. Sigma tottered to the right, looking every bit as unstable as a man thrice his age.

“Sigma!” Phi cried out, a dash of genuine alarm bursting through in her voice. It hadn’t taken long for Sigma to steady himself, but it was concerning that it had happened at all.

Sigma held up one hand and waved her off. “Ah, I’m okay. Please, do not worry about me,” he said, his tone sounding, somehow, just as collected as before. Still, Phi caught him murmuring to himself as he resumed the kneeling position. “I’m unused to doing it this way.”

Phi could leave that for later. For now, there was the matter of finding out what was outside the room they’d been trapped in. She planted one foot firmly in Sigma’s cupped hands and tensed, ready to launch herself upwards.

“Hold on, Phi!” Sigma exclaimed. He must have guessed what Phi was about to do – feeling it through the tension in her leg, perhaps – and called out to stop her.

“Huh? What’s up?” Phi asked, her disgruntlement loud and clear in her tone.

“We don’t know what’s on the other side,” Sigma stated. “If there is danger, we would certainly prefer to go more steadily and cautiously.

“Fine, then.”

Rather than making the bold leap she’d intended, Phi let Sigma raise her carefully up to the roof of the elevator. Then she turned and help him up as well. Together, they’d overcome the first contest of the trial their kidnappers had set for them.

In the expansive warehouse Phi had found herself in after escaping five people were already present, in a huddle near the centre of the open space. They were all wearing wristbands, same as Phi and Sigma, so it was more than likely they were other victims trapped in this building by the kidnappers.

Quick introductions allowed Phi to learn all their names. Alice, a dark-skinned elegant woman wearing Egyptian-style jewellery. Tenmyouji, a brusque older guy. The two of them had come out of the same elevator, and the text on their bracelets was red instead of Phi’s green. The cocky circus ringleader Dio: the display on his bracelet was also red, but the text below the number read ‘Solo’ instead of ‘Pair’. A primly dressed ginger-haired woman named Luna. And finally, the person Luna was tending to: a pink-haired younger woman lying limp and utterly unconscious on the floor, who Alice introduced as Clover. Luna and Clover were also a pair, with blue text on their bracelets.

A few moments later, just as Clover was beginning to stir, the hatch on another of the boxy elevators swung open. Out of the climbed a young boy, scruffily dressed with his dirty-blond hair covered by a brown bowl helmet, plastic boxes strapped to either side.

“Quark!” Tenmyouji called out. A soft smile came to his face in obvious relief. Then, a look a realisation, a frown. He yelled out into the open air. “You left him by himself?!” The venom in that question wasn’t directed at anyone present, but deeply-felt nonetheless.

Sigma stepped over to Tenmyouji and placed a reassuring hand on his back. “Do you believe the kidnappers are able to hear us?” He paused, stroking his chin. “It’s possible, I suppose. They would want to monitor us. Though… I do not know if we can expect an answer.”

Phi instead approached Quark as he clambered down, dropping the rest of the way and landing lightly on his feet. She took a moment to surreptitiously examine his wristband – the word ‘Solo’, written in green – and then called out to him. “Hey. How did you manage to climb up there?” She and Sigma had needed to work together to get out, after all, and that fact was more than salient in Phi’s mind.

Quark replied politely. “There was a stepladder, tucked away in the corner.” He tilted his head to the side quizzically. “Wasn’t there one in yours, miss?”

Phi shook her head.

Striding over to join them, Dio scoffed, “You got a ladder out, kid? Some of us had to put the work in ourselves.”

Shortly after that the final hatch along the line of fake elevators opened. But this time no-one emerged.

“Is that one empty?” Quark asked.

Phi shook her head. “Not likely. Look. Someone had to open up that hatch.”

Shortly after, a woman’s voice came out through the hole. It wasn’t particularly strong, not much lung-power behind it, but the metal of the elevator and the acoustics of the warehouse helped it carry well.

“Is anyone out there? Can you please assist?”

Alice head shot round toward the newly-opened elevator. “Let’s get her out of there,” she said, in the tone of someone used to giving orders. Phi noticed that Alice’s attention first turned to Clover, but since she was still looking a bit unsteady on her feet, Alice then settled on Phi herself.

Phi nodded in response. Then, without waiting for Alice she headed over to the side of the elevators and agilely made her way up. Once Alice had joined her they peered into the hole. The final member of the group of kidnapping victims was inside. She was an old lady, with a scraggily ponytail of grey hair, wearing an indigo turtleneck dress.

Phi reached down a hand towards her. Alice did the same on the other side. The old lady reached out – physically frail but with complete surety – and grasped them both. “Thank you,” she said. Then, as they began to haul her up, the lady added, “My name is Akane.”

The very moment Akane’s body had cleared the hole on top of her elevator a projector sprung to life, bathing one of the walls in light. As the crowd gathered around the screen an image faded into view. It was a face… but not quite. More like it was a metallic face-plate: eyes glowing a faint, threatening orange, gold screwheads at the sides where the ears ought to be, the strangely shaped gap between the cheek suggesting the possibility of a nose and mouth.

“Welcome to the Nonary Game, Tria-Game edition,” the faceplate announced, the voice modulated to make it smooth and mellow but clearly artificial. “Please, call me Zero.”

A robot? An AI? A suit of powered armour? Phi wouldn’t have time to ponder it further, as Zero continued his presentation even over multiple different cries of protest. First he explained that the bracelets would track the players’ progression through the game and penalise any breaking of the rules. Of course, the penalty for breaking any rules or failing in the game was death. Then Zero explained how they could escape and survive.

“Find three different keys and, at the exact same moment, turn them in the three different locks,” Zero said. “Once done, escape will become possible.”

Phi could immediately see which locks Zero was talking about. Solid steel, almost bulkhead-like, recessed into warehouse wall, the door with a number nine daubed over it in a thick blood red was clearly their way out. And, just as clearly, impossible to get through other than via following the rules of the game. Three different devices were attached to the centre bar: a number pad, an electronic card reader, and a padlock that was practically dainty, at least compared to the door it was attached to.

“Okay, so how do we actually go and find these keys?” Phi asked.

Zero answered, completely ignoring the snark in Phi’s question. He indicated the three other doors out of the warehouse – cyan, magenta, and yellow – and explained how they interacted with the colours on the players bracelets.

“One of the three keys will be found behind each trio of Chromatic Doors,” he concluded. “The first set of Chromatic Doors will open…” He paused, perfectly still like the display had frozen. “…Now.”

As one, the cyan, magenta and yellow doors opened with a whoosh of air.

“They will remain open for five minutes. Please make your choice, and go through.” Once Zero had finished speaking the projector flickered off.

Phi quickly calculated the various ways the group of nine players could go through the Chromatic Doors. There were only three:

Option A: Phi and Sigma (green) went with Quark (green) through the Magenta door. Luna and Clover (blue) went with Akane (blue) through the Yellow door. Tenmyouji and Alice (red) went with Dio (red) through the Cyan door.

Option B: Phi and Sigma (green) went with Dio (red) through the Yellow door. Luna and Clover (blue) went with Quark (green) through the Cyan door. Tenmyouji and Alice (red) went with Akane (blue) through the Magenta door.

Option C: Phi and Sigma (green) went with Akane (blue) through the Cyan door. Luna and Clover (blue) went with Dio (red) through the Magenta door. Tenmyouji and Alice (red) went with Quark (green) through the Yellow door.

Phi had hoped that laying out the options on the table would help the other players make a decision. Unfortunately, it did the exact opposite. After several minutes of bickering and indecision they were no closer to putting even one foot over the thresholds of the Chromatic Doors.

Then, as the final minute counted down, Sigma called out in a strong, commanding voice. “Phi! Quark! The magenta door! Follow me!” For a moment Phi thought it wouldn’t work, but the time-pressure seemed to spur everyone else to agree.

However the decision had been made, at least it had been reached in time.

—–

Zero observed dispassionately as the players of the Nonary Game made their way to the Chromatic Doors. Though, he supposed in truth that he was not the real Zero but just a substitute. A successor to Zero; Zero the second; Zero Jr., perhaps. However he considered it, the first step of his Nonary Game: Tria-Game had worked. The rooms of the facility had been stocked and prepared, the players had been introduced, and they’d been guided onto the path through the game.

Now all he had to do was carry it through to the end. Everything depended on it, if he was ever to rectify his error.

—–

Quark

Quark followed his two teammates – the petite young woman with the pretty flower ornament who’d introduced herself as Phi, and the muscular man with the thick black hair named Sigma – down the corridor behind the magenta door. When they reached the room at the end, labelled the ‘Lounge’, they entered. The lounge was dimly lit, with little more than mood lighting around the ceiling and floor to see by. It was enough, though: Quark was used to his eyes adapting to different levels of light from his time delving in and around the various ruins.

“What do you think this room is, Mister Sigma?” he asked. Quark wasn’t exactly sure what a lounge was supposed to be. There was a sofa around one corner with brightly-coloured cushions scattered on top. And over on the other side of the room was what looked like a kiddie’s playset, blocks and toys similar to what Grandpa had scrounged up for Quark when he was younger. All in all, Quark didn’t have an idea what the room was supposed to be for.

Sigma met Quark’s gaze with a gentle nod of his head. “I suppose there are many different conceptions of what a lounge could be,” he said. Which didn’t really answer Quark’s question.

“Look at this,” Phi called out from the other side of the lounge. She was standing behind a high partition in front of some bare, dusty shelves. “Do you think this could have been intended to be a bar? Bottles of drinks back there –” She gestured at the shelves. Then she swept her hand across the surface in front of her. “– and this would be the serving counter. Hmm… I wonder why they took it all out?”

“A bar?” Quark exclaimed. “Could you get a root beer float?”

“Ah,” Sigma replied. “It isn’t that sort of bar, Quark.” When he looked back up towards Phi, there was a sort of strained, serious look in his eyes. “As for why it was stripped bare… Whatever this facility is, I suspect they considered the prospect of mental impairment as a risk impossible to justify. Hence, a bar would be unsuitable.”

Quark knew, more or less, what the facility they’d woken up in was. But the one thing Grandpa had stressed, as the two of them made their way up here, was that they weren’t allowed to tell anyone else what they knew. So Quark knew that it was wrong to say what he wanted to there. Instead he asked, “What do we have to do in here? Miss Phi? Mister Sigma?”

There were three other doors out of the lounge. However two of them, leading off to either side, were covered over with thick metal plates, rivetted into the walls alongside with no way to even think about removing it.

“Looks like that door’s our way forward,” Phi said, pointing out the final door directly opposite. “Look. It’s even got a keyhole like the one in the elevators. That must mean we’ll have to solve a puzzle to get through here.”

“Ah, yes,” Sigma replied, stroking his chin. “It looks like you’re right. There’s a safe in this corner as well.”

Puzzles, in a Nonary Game. It sounded a lot like Grandpa’s old tales: those stories he’d start retelling, around the campfire, whenever they were both tired at the end of the day. “Are the other groups also solving puzzles?” he asked. If they were, then his Grandpa would be doing one right that moment, somewhere behind the cyan door.

“It’s quite likely,” Sigma replied. He pitched his voice to be calm and reassuring, in that way adults did sometimes, and added, “They’ll all do their best to get through.”

“I guess, Mister Sigma,” Quark whispered, with what he thought was only a hint of a waver.

Phi strode away from the exit door, back to the centre of the room. “It’s not like we can do anything about it from in here,” she stated. “What we have to think about now is doing our best to get through here. Everyone, get searching.”

Sigma and Phi started, rummaging around the various nooks and corners of the lounge for components of the puzzle. Quark did his best to help out. Still, he didn’t really understand exactly what they were looking for. There wasn’t anything like an ‘escape room’ in the world he’d grown up in. Quark was great at finding hidden stuff, working with his Grandpa, but that was actual valuable things that people could make use of. The puzzle was working on completely different logic from that. At one point Sigma even had to gently lift one item out of Quark’s hands – a bent plastic tube, with different-coloured screws running along one side – just as Quark was about to toss it aside as trash. Sigma passed the tube over to Phi, who attached it to something else she’d found and started intently adjusting the screws.

The closest Quark came to finding something useful was when he was strolling along the left-hand wall, past the plated-over door. About a foot further along, at head-height for Quark, he recognised a panel in the wall that could move.

“Look at this! Look at this!” he called out excitedly.

Quark couldn’t get the panel slid aside by himself so he was happy when Sigma came over and did it for him. Underneath was some sort of number pad. But, however much Quark was convinced it was really important, the thin slit of a screen at the top of the pad was dim and dark. The number pad wasn’t powered. It wasn’t usable.

“I guess that’s not part of the puzzle,” Phi murmured. “Probably just part of the facility before it was repurposed for the Nonary Game.” She turned away and headed back to the part of the puzzle she’d been working on, near the sofa.

Sigma had been about to turn away as well. But then he seemed to notice something – something Quark felt like he’d rather not be noticed – because he came over to the wall beside Quark and crouched down to the same level.

“There’s something my father said to me once,” Sigma said, without any lead-in. “When I was young I had felt much like you do now. Just watching my father at work I’d felt like I should have been able to help him. And when I couldn’t… The way you looked just then reminded me of that. Of myself.”

“And… what did your dad say?” Quark asked hesitantly.

“Well,” Sigma began, “what he told me was that I would, one day, have a role to play. That everything until then was about preparing for it. He told me that just because I wasn’t ready yet didn’t mean I didn’t have value.” He reached over and gave Quark an affectionate pat on his back. “You’re still young, Quark. Too young to be thrust into a situation like this. We know you’re doing your best.”

Quark raised his head, steadied his breathing. “Your dad sounds like a great guy, Mister Sigma,” he said. “Did what he said help you too?”

Sigma glanced away. His lip curled up into an awkward frown. Quark was about to ask him what he was thinking about. But then, just as he opened his mouth, a harsh beep rang out from each of their three bracelets.

Quark glanced down at his wrist on pure instinct. There, the large green number in the middle of the bracelet’s display had shifted, dropping from ‘3’ to ‘2’.

“Hey!” Phi called out to the two of them from the other side of the room, waving her wrist back and forth and pointing at it with her other hand. “Did you do this?”

Sigma shook his head, holding his hand innocently against his chest. “I do not believe anything that we’ve done could have triggered that.”

Phi frowned. “Then we’d better get out of here. We’ll have to, if we want to find out what’s going on outside.”

After that, Quark watched Phi and Sigma solve the rest of the puzzle. Phi took the key from the safe and put it in the keyhole of the door opposite; it opened, and the three of them were able to spill out into the corridor beyond.

They reunited with the rest of the players in front of an elevator at the end of the path. Grandpa, Alice, and Dio had come from a room called the crew quarters, and Grandpa had brought something with him from there. He held it pinched between his fingers as he brought it out to show the rest of the group.

“Found this identity card tucked away behind one of the folding beds,” he explained. “It wasn’t any part of the puzzle, but it’s got to be important. Maybe we’ll get to learn something about why we were all brought here.”

Alice stepped forward, resting her fingers on her forehead. “Wasn’t it right at the moment that all of our bracelets sounded?” she said. “I can assure you, finding that card is what caused it.”

Dio scowled. “It’s like that creepy fucking mask guy has got eyes on us at all moments. Watching what everything we’re doing, and reacting to it. How can a gentleman live like that?”

All the other adults agreed that Grandpa should keep hold of the card until they could work out what it was for. At the same time, the other team had also brought something with them from their puzzle room. And their find was far less encouraging.

“We found this newspaper article in the infirmary,” Luna said, her voice soothing even as she sounded worried. “It… It might be better if we discussed what it said in there. It’s about something called Radical-6.”

As everyone else headed that way Quark found himself falling to the back of the pack. It took him a moment to get to walking to follow them, and even then he just dawdled along behind them. His head was feeling tired, and achy.

His head was feeling… slow.

—–

Zero was well aware that his Nonary Game was cobbled together from the remnants of a very different game. He’d refurbished the rooms as best he could, stripping out those puzzles that didn’t suit the Tria-Game and replacing them where he could with ones that would better convey the necessary themes. Still, when Zero had inherited Rhizome 9 he’d been constrained by the facility’s structure, by the layout of the connections between the various rooms, and by those features that had been installed in the escape rooms so securely that they could not be removed or altered.

A constant reminder that the other Nonary Game was the one that had been meant to be.

—–

Tenmyouji

Tenmyouji had wandered away from the rest of the group after they’d finished discussing the article about Radical-6. He’d already known everything they’d had to say and the sheer contradiction, of having to pretend like he didn’t, had frayed his nerves. How his grandson had been getting through it, he had no idea.

According to his bracelet, now displaying its number ‘2’ and the word ‘solo’ in garishly bright cyan text, there was half an hour before the next stage of the game. The other players had dispersed, engaged in their own little conversations or investigating the floor of the facility they currently had access to. That was pretty much what Tenmyouji had in mind as well. But in his specific circumstances he’d have to wait for the right moment, if he was going to avoid suspicion. For the right opportunity to have the conversation he’d been awaiting for forty-five years.

As Tenmyouji waited, biding his time, he observed the movements of the other players. He’d told Quark to stay where there were multiple other people, not to let anyone get him alone. His grandson had taken that instruction with a muted voice and a blank expression, but he was doing what Tenmyouji had asked to keep himself safe.

Dio had taken up station in the lounge, reclining on the sofa like it was a gaudy throne. Phi had gone down the elevator to check on the obstruction that was preventing the group that was going any further. Alice had decided to try and see if she could get the Zero who’d presented the rules to them in the warehouse to cough up any more any more info, while Sigma and Clover were going back through each of the escape rooms in turn to see if there were any clues they’d missed the first time around.

Nothing to get in the way of Tenmyouji’s plan, so long as he was careful.

Soon – sooner than Tenmyouji had thought was possible – his opportunity arrived. Doubling back to get away from Sigma and Clover, he entered the infirmary. As he’d hoped only two people were inside. One of them was Luna, who was carefully examining the machine called the ADAM.

Tenmyouji called out to the other person. “Akane!” He tried to keep the excitement from his voice. Whatever was happening, it would be best for both of them if the rest of the players didn’t realise their connection. “There’s something in the crew quarters that someone else should get a look at.”

Akane wouldn’t have been Akane if she hadn’t understood immediately what he was attempting. “Of course,” she replied, as perfectly neutral in tone as Tenmyouji had been doing his level best to even get close to. Having said that, Akane directed a questioning glance Luna’s way.

“Huh?” Luna exclaimed when she noticed the attention. She paused for a moment, raised finger hovering by her cheek. But then she shook her head. “I should stay here. I’m the only one capable of using this. If something was to happen to one of us later…”

“Hmph. I guess if you aren’t at all one bit interested…” Of course, what she’d said was exactly what Tenmyouji was hoping she’d decide. After forty-five years, that sort of double-faced pretence came naturally, easily. “Let’s go,” he said to Akane.

The two of them headed out of the infirmary and, after checking that the coast was clear, headed to the crew quarters. Tenmyouji had picked this room for a reason; he led Akane inside one of the side compartments and closed the door behind him, spinning the handwheel until it was at the very end of its turn.

He and Akane were finally alone. Together.

“Jumpy.”

“Kanny.” Tenmyouji didn’t know what to say at first, but that. Everything he’d wanted to say to her, ask her, demand from her, all came rushing up at once and clogging up as he tried to say it all at once.

It just felt right to be able say ‘Kanny’ once more.

Akane ended up speaking first. “We finally meet, and it’s in another Nonary Game.”

“Yes. That’s right,” Tenmyouji replied bluntly. “After all that time. All those years.”

Another awkward, blame-ridden silence followed.

“I’d guess you want to ask me what’s happening here,” Akane said solemnly. She met Tenmyouji’s gaze head on, her expression soft but unwavering. “I don’t know if you can believe me, but what’s happening… This wasn’t the plan.”

“So there was a plan?”

Akane turned away from him. She sighed. But, eventually, she answered. “Yes.”

“Of course you’d find a way to be involved in this.” He took one step towards her, beckoning with his arms stretched wide. “Why? Why, Kanny? And why drag Clover and Alice into it, too? What did they do to deserve this?”

For the first time since she’d stepped out of her elevator, Akane looked… old. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you. I really can’t.” When she turned to face him, she was wearing just a hint of that pretty smile Tenmyouji remembered from when they were young. “I’d thought when I met you again it would go very differently.”

“You were going to show up right at the end, present everything you’d done and all the justifications as a fait accompli.” He knew Kanny far too well.

She just nodded, apologetically but without any trace of guilt. “As I said, this wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Whatever the plan is behind this Nonary Game, it’s not mine. I don’t know what this Zero’s intentions are or what’s going to happen, any more than you do.”

Guess the sudokus don’t always roll out right way up for Akane, after all. Huh. “Okay. Then what about this? If you’re connected to this facility, then at least you can tell me more about this thing.”

He took out the ID card he’d found in the crew quarters earlier and turned to present it to Akane. What had it been doing there? The name on the card read ‘Dr. Klim’; that, and the face alongside – a middle-aged guy with a prosthetic eyepiece – stirred a strange feeling of familiarity. Had this guy been a senior researcher at the Rhizome 9 facility? Was he someone who had been driven out, or worse, by the people behind this Nonary Game? Or was this Dr. Klim connected to the helmeted kidnapper who called himself Zero?

Hopefully Akane could answer some of those questions.

When Akane spied the details on the card her lips pursed into a thin, concerned frown. She opened her mouth to start speaking, then caught herself. “That’s… concerning. If that card was available inside the game… I don’t understand what happened here.”

So Akane knew this Klim guy, whoever he was. Knowing that, Tenmyouji asked the other question the ID card had brought up. “So why did the counter on our bracelets drop right at the moment I picked it up.” That had all but confirmed the card was important to the Nonary Game.

Akane leaned forward, peering closely at the card between Tenmyouji’s fingertips. “My only guess is that it’s one of the three keys Zero told us to get,” she said.

That was what Tenmyouji had guessed as well. They’d been told there would be a key at each stage of the Nonary Game, and this was the only thing from the first three rooms that could count. Unless someone was hiding something.

Thinking that, he was glad he’d held on to the ID card himself. If his last ordeal of a Nonary Game was anything to go by, there could easily be someone among them who didn’t want any of them getting out alive.

As Tenmyouji put the ID card away, deep inside his pocket, Akane gave him an approving nod. Then she said, clasping her hands together in front of her, “I know I don’t have any reason to expect your trust. I burnt that a long time ago. But… It matters to me that you survive. If we work out what’s going on here, and I can use that to our advantage. I’d prefer that you and Quark escape from this place than not.

Before Tenmyouji could reply to that, a voice made itself heard from the corridor leading up to the crew quarters. Tenmyouji hastily spun the handwheel that sealed the door back around, getting the door open just before whoever was approaching came across them. Shortly after he and Akane stepped out into the central path of the crew quarters, the door from the warehouse opened and Phi stepped through, flustered and with a determined expression.

“Tenmyouji! Akane! Come quick!”

“What is it?” Tenmyouji had a sinking feeling even before Phi explained. “What happened?”

Phi grimaced, but answered plainly. “It’s Quark. He’s in the infirmary. He collapsed.”

When the three of them arrived back at the infirmary the situation had, somehow, deteriorated even from the horror of knowing Quark had collapsed. Quark was upright again, yes. But he was being held up against the wall, Sigma using all of his adult strength to keep him in place. And it wasn’t just Sigma assaulting Quark; Alice and Clover had joined in as well, yanking on Quark’s free arm.

“Stop!” Tenmyouji roared. “What the hell are you doing to him? He’s just a kid, for God’s sake!”

He took a step forward to intervene. But then he felt his motion suddenly arrested; Akane had grabbed hold of his elbow.

“Junpei,” she whispered, close to his ear. “Please… wait.”

Tenmyouji almost couldn’t believe that Akane would stop him from going to the defence of his grandson. But something in the tone of her voice kept him in place, far more surely than her grip on his arm.

In one smooth, proficient motion Alice wrested a small knife from Quark’s outstretched hand and tossed it to the floor. In the same moment Quark began screaming.

“This isn’t right! It’s not supposed to be like this! We’ve only got one way to get out of here. Please, let me do it. Let me get out!”

“Kid’s been like this for the past minute,” Dio said. “Just crazy.”

Coming into the centre of the room from behind Tenmyouji, Phi made the decision with a stern expression on her face. “This isn’t working. We haven’t got a choice. Luna: stick him.”

Before Tenmyouji could even open his mouth to object Luna did so, putting the tip of a syringe gently into Quark’s upper arm. He struggled and squirmed under Sigma’s grasp for a few seconds longer but then fell limp and still.

After that it didn’t take long to find out what had caused his grandson’s outburst. Quark had been infected with Radical-6.

—–

Radical-6 had been inherent to the structure of the Nonary Game from the very beginning, long before Zero had gotten his hands on it. Without that virus, the players wouldn’t understand what was at stake. And without it, the inconsistencies of the game’s location would grow and compound until they overran and ruined the game’s credibility. Everyone had to be infected for the Nonary Game to work. Several had been beforehand: Zero had been quietly grateful not to face the burden of doing all the injections himself.

In any case, Radical-6 meant there was only one chance to get the game right. Under the new circumstances, the consequences if it failed would be beyond repair.

—–

Alice

Alice had joined the rest of the group of players in front of the second set of Chromatic Doors. Since all of them would need to go through – their bracelets demanded it – Tenmyouji was carrying the unconscious Quark tenderly cradled in his arms. The doors had just opened. The five minutes they had to make their decision were counting down.

As before, there were three possible options:

Option A: Alice (Magenta) went with Clover and Quark (Magenta) through the Green Door. Sigma (Yellow) went with Phi and Akane (Yellow) through the Blue Door. Tenmyouji (Cyan) went with Luna and Dio (Cyan) through the Red Door.

Option B: Alice (Magenta) went with Luna and Dio (Cyan) through the Blue Door. Sigma (Yellow) went with Clover and Quark (Magenta) through the Red Door. Tenmyouji (Cyan) went with Phi and Akane (Yellow) through the Green Door.

Option C: Alice (Magenta) went with Phi and Akane (Yellow) through the Red Door. Sigma (Yellow) went with Luna and Dio (Cyan) through the Green Door. Tenmyouji (Cyan) went with Clover and Quark (Magenta) through the Blue Door.

Once the options had been spelled out Alice had expected the same sort of quarrel that had followed opening of the first set of Chromatic Doors – was prepared and revved-up for it, in fact. But just as she thought it had been about to begin, the guy called Sigma raised his hand in a cordial request for attention.

“Ah, may I say something?” Sigma began, as he ran his other hand through his messy thick black hair. “I have a suggestion. Since we cannot know anything about what is behind these doors I do not believe there is much reason for any of us to prefer one door over another. In that case, would it not be easiest for us to go to the doors we’re closest to?” He gestured at the archway of the red door, just behind him. “It seems I’ll be going through here with…” A drawn out, slightly strained pause. “… Clover and Quark.”

The idea certainly sounded reasonable, and Sigma’s smooth, mellow tone certainly put it across better than a raised, argumentative yell would have. Which was, of course, the problem.

If SOIS taught their operatives anything it was to never let any other actor take complete control of events. Whether the enemy, agents of other factions, or just random civilians who were trying to set the pace, a SOIS agent’s duty was to wrest it back on their own terms, or at least disrupt things enough to get some room to manoeuvre.

And hadn’t this Sigma guy picked at the first set of Chromatic Doors, too?

“No way!” Alice interrupted, putting as much outrage into her voice as she could muster while glaring Sigma’s way. “We should do this fairly. Put it to a vote.”

For just a moment Alice thought she’d gleaned a strange squint in Sigma’s eye. But then he chuckled heartily. “Ha, ha, ha. Of course, that’s an excellent idea as well. Shall we all put our hands up for which option we’d prefer?”

When Alice had brought it up she knew that the suggestion of voting would draw out particular responses. Responses she could use. Tenmyouji’s was the most obvious. “My vote’s for option C. I’m going with Quark. Nothing else to say about it.”

Clover was on the ball, and Alice trusted her to run with what she was trying to accomplish without having to plan it out explicitly beforehand. Having let Tenmyouji come in first and in between them, to obfuscate her and Alice’s connection, she now made her move. “Yeah! That sounds great to me!” she said brightly. “Quark’s my partner, so that’d mean we’re going together through the, um… through the blue door. That’s right.”

With the momentum established, it wasn’t long before everyone had been brought into agreement around that option. Even Sigma, who’d opened up the suggestions with another option, merely nodded his head genially. “Very well. It looks like I will be going with Luna and Dio. Shall we go?”

As the crowd separated Alice joined up with the pair of Phi and Akane. Together they headed through the red Chromatic Door.

Just as planned.

When they reached the end of the corridor and found the hub of three doors there only one of them opened. The holographic plaque that flashed up briefly declared it to be the laboratory.

A laboratory? There’d been clues – if you knew where to look – that the facility they were trapped in had been used for some sort of research before it had repurposed for a Nonary Game. Maybe, inside, they would find out what exactly was being researched, and Alice would begin to unravel what was going on. Get a hook into understanding what the kidnappers’ goals were, why and how they had abducted the two SOIS agents to participate, and then begin plotting the best way to bring the kidnappers to justice.

But before she could get to that, Alice would have to deal with the room in front of her and the escape room puzzle it almost certainly contained. The old lady Akane was closest to the opened door and stepped through first. Alice and Phi made to follow her, only to find that Akane had frozen in place just past the threshold.

Alice heard Akane’s almost ethereal mutter. “If this happened here, then that means… I need to find out more.” Even as she said that, the old lady didn’t move or, or even try to explain what had her so dumbstruck.

Stepping past Akane, Alice surveyed the room. The laboratory was shaped as a quarter circle, with the exit door at the other end of the arc. On Alice’s first glance she could glimpse the worksurfaces for experiments recessed into the wall opposite, a large central hub that filled the centre of the space, while on the wall next to the entrance pieces of equipment protruded through various panels: tubes and levers and electronic readouts. The room certainly looked like an operable laboratory.

But none of that was important, at least compared to the most striking feature of the room. The scorch marks. Several streaks of sickly black ran like rays across the metal panels that covered the curved wall. In the tangle of equipment to Alice’s right several of the pipes had buckled or broken; when Alice peered at it closely it appeared as though the whole apparatus had once been covered by a glass window, long since smashed. And she almost imagined that she could see thin wafts of smoke rising from the back corners of the workstations.

“The hell happened here?” Phi said bitterly as she stepped into the room.

“That,” Akane replied, finally stirring, “is what we have to find out. It’s more vital than anything else. Even escaping.”

In the centre of the wide table that took up most of the space in the laboratory, right next to the puzzle’s safe, a small computer had been prominently mounted. It activated as Alice approached, screen lighting up a pale clinical green. When she tried to fiddle with it, pressing one of the buttons to see what it would do, bold text emerged on the screen.

‘Authorisation level insufficient. Laboratory will operate in Safety mode only.’

Annoying. If Alice had access to all of SOIS’ resources and capability she would have had Hazuki or one of the other computer boffins try to crack it. As it was, she didn’t have a choice but to let the system play out as it was programmed.

Beside the computer was a single sheet of paper, laminated on both sides. The title across the top read, ‘Procedure for synthesising Axelavir antibodies from provided sample.’

“Axelavir?” Phi muttered. “Isn’t that the thing Luna said could cure Quark’s Radical-6?”

Akane nodded, her expression determined and full of certainty. “That is correct. If Zero is making it so prominent a part of the puzzle… I’m not sure what that means yet, but it is certainly important.”

There was certainly something weird about it. SOIS had known that the terrorists at Free the Soul had been planning something terrible with a virus like Radical-6. Would it have been such a high priority if there had been a known cure?

Alice kept her disconcertment from appearing on her face, then spoke up. “Clearly he wants us to go through this procedure as the puzzle for getting out of here,” she said bluntly. “Let’s do it. Before the ash in here mars my skin.”

The three of them found the components the procedure asked for, secreted away in various compartments around the laboratory. Then they began to work through the steps, one by one. The progress they made was smooth and steady, despite some grumbling from Phi – “You’d think they’d have automated some of this,” while she was stirring some of the chemicals by hand – and the side-eye that comment drew from Akane.

Eventually they reached the last step. Alice, holding the instruction sheet and standing next to the curved wall where she could oversee the entire room, examined the device they’d inserted everything else into. Then she read the last line of the instructions.

“It calls for something called a chemical stabiliser,” she stated. “We need to add that before starting the machine.”

It had just been one simple instruction. And so Phi’s response was completely unexpected. “There isn’t any.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you hear me? There isn’t any,” Phi repeated. She gestured towards the cabinet from which they’d taken every other chemical they’d used so far. “I’ve looked back and forth and there isn’t any sort of stabiliser in there.”

Alice looked around. Was there anywhere else the stabiliser could be? They’d searched most of the cabinets and containers throughout the laboratory. She tested the metal panels that she’d been leaning up against, the ones that covered the curved wall. There was a hollow space concealed behind them – she could tell that – but just as clearly there was no way through.

She gave up her search with a deep sigh. “Fine. It looks like we’ll have to hold off on doing anything with the machine. At least until we understand why the recipe is calling for something that isn’t even in here.”

The device picked that moment to begin to whir.

“You are fucking kidding me.” Alice could only watch as the device began to process all of the ingredients they had collected – all of them, that is, but the stabiliser. And then she could only watch as the machine began to squeal and whine.

And clank. And then, began to smoke.

After a quick back-and-forth argument with Phi, Alice snapped, “Clearly, this is something wrong with the machine. If you’d been paying attention you’d have seen that I didn’t do anything to start it.” She frowned; a thought struck her. “Could this be the same fault that caused the earlier disaster?”

Phi started replying – “An escape room that just blows you up as you work through it?” – but before she could add anything Akane interrupted.

“Yes.”

The sheer certainty of Akane’s response triggered something in Alice’s intuitions. “You know something about what’s going on here. Don’t you?” She had lingering suspicions about the way the old lady had been acting from the start.

Akane’s face hardened into a calculating expression. Then, she nodded. “There’s a chance not all of us will survive this. I will let you have some information that should prove crucial later, in case I am not around to use it later. We may not have much time, so do not interrupt.”

That rankled, but Alice was experienced enough to force down her indignation and welcome whatever info she was going to get to extract.

Akane explained that she had assisted in managing the facility until some time ago. “At a certain point, when I was away from the facility, communications were cut off. I was unable to get back in contact until I was brought here for the Nonary Game. If I don’t survive this, you need to get a message to–”

The streams of fumes emanating from the device cut off at once. The grinding and squealing from inside fell silent as well; in fact the device made a bright, positive ‘ding!’ as though it had intended to do this all along, just like Clover did whenever Alice caught her getting into something she wasn’t supposed to. And, as the machine came to a complete stop, the hatch at the bottom opened up and dispensed a red plastic sphere.

“It’s clearly not any sort of antiviral,” Phi said as she picked it up. “Not Axelavir. But if it’s part of the puzzle.” She turned and took it over to the lab computer.

Alice turned to Akane. “You were saying?”

The calculating look flashed through Akane’s eyes once more. “It can wait. The danger has passed.” She pointed at where Phi had brought up the safe password on the computer screen. “For now, shouldn’t we continue? If I’m right, there should be something important inside the safe.”

Fine, then. Alice headed over to the safe, read the code from the computer screen, and opened it up. The key to get out was at the bottom, but Alice knew that would be there. Not what Akane was talking about. But when she peered in more closely she saw a word glinting out of the shadow.

‘Axelavir’. Printed on the side of a curved gleam of glass.

Was it really? If so, then Alice would be the one to save Quark’s life. She reached into the safe, hand reaching towards the Axelavir. And then…

Pain. Sudden, sharp pain, running right across her palm. When Alice took her hand out of the safe it was bleeding, a straight gash right across the centre.

One more glance into the safe revealed why. The glass labelled ‘Axelavir’ wasn’t anymore a vial. It had been smashed, since before the safe was opened. There had never been anything inside.

—–

The Nonary Game had been designed to work with different choices, multiple paths through the game and the many possible outcomes that could be reached by the end. Designed to take advantage of them, even. So Zero shouldn’t have been surprised when a different route was taken at the primary-coloured set of Chromatic Doors.

Would the Tria-Game Edition be so robust? Zero required a particular end-state, certain carefully chosen and vital conditions to be met, if he was going to accomplish his task. He’d set up the rewards and punishments of the Nonary Game to guide the players towards fulfilling those conditions, so he could exert at least some measure of control. But was it certain? If the players were employing their free will, rather than going down the rails Zero had laid in front of them, wasn’t there a danger they’d do something completely unexpected that would break Zero’s win-condition completely?

He was going to have to… improvise.

—–

Luna

Luna stood in the Gaulem Bay behind the green Chromatic door, where her team of three had finished solving the puzzle to open up the safe. But there was a good reason why they hadn’t moved on, even though the exit door was wide open and welcoming them on. Just as the exit door had opened, one of her brothers had stirred where he hung, and called out from where he hung.

So the three of them were standing in the central space of the bay, turned away from the repair bay and facing the single line where the five other Gaulems were suspended. Luna in the centre. Dio, still smarting about how he’d been corrected during the puzzle and who had been strutting and flourishing his longcoat more obnoxiously than usual in response, stood to her right. And on her left stood the man who’d asked her to call him ‘Sigma’. Who looked so like Sigma had when he’d first created her. The man she’d helped raise from a young child.

The man who was the Zero of this Nonary Game. It was best to keep on thinking of him that way.

The Gaulem who’d called out to them was GTM-CM-G-OLM. Instantly recognisable, by his tone of voice – not that all six of the Gaulems Sigma had programmed weren’t just as iconic. “Good to see you willing to hear out a guy like me.”

“It’s not like any of us has anything better to do,” Dio scoffed. “Like, say, escaping from this damn death-trap of a building.”

“I think we should listen,” Luna said. “He seems nice, and I think he has something important to tell us. What do you think…” An unavoidable pause, before she said the name. “Sigma?”

The man she’d just addressed replied. “That seems reasonable. I, at least, have no objections.” His tone was wooden, and Luna could almost see the discomfort radiating off him. He hadn’t visited the Gaulem bay much in the years before the Nonary Game had begun.

GTM-CM-G-OLM began regaling the three of them with a philosophical diatribe. Not one Luna had heard before. Her brother had always been skilled at contemplating deep ideas and then spinning the insights together in ways that matched the situation at hand.

“And that’s why they’re called philosophical zombies,” GTM-CM-G-OLM concluded, his torso swinging back and forth on his mounting in response to his arm motions as he gestured. “Can you Adam-and-Eve it? Living in a world with a bunch of blokes who act just like stand-up guys, but don’t have anything at all going on inside?”

“Sounds just like a normal day at the office, to me,” Dio muttered with a sneer.

“If you say so, Dio me mate,” GTM-CM-G-OLM said, crossing his skeletal metal arms. “Now, it’s not really a thing us Gaulems have to worry about.”

“I suppose that everything that’s going on inside a robot’s mind is just a program.” It hurt, somewhat, to hear Zero put it like that. “Does it make any actual sense to ask whether it’s ‘real’ at all?”

GTM-CM-G-OLM leaned back in mock outrage. “You wound me, guv’nor. It’s quite the opposite, in fact. See, me and all my mates are living in the central computer. Which means, if a new Gaulem were to come by and we weren’t sure if he was a zombie, then… well, the code that makes up his noggin would be on the central computer too, wouldn’t it? So I could just have a butcher’s and see for myself that he’s no zombie.”

Luna hoped Zero and Dio hadn’t seen her shiver of discomfort.

“Now you humans,” GTM-CM-G-OLM continued, “can’t do anything like that with each other. You could wake up one morning and see someone who looks exactly like the guy you’d expect to see but is completely different on the inside. The way I’d see it, there’s nothing you could do to check.”

A small silence followed the end of GTM-CM-G-OLM’s speech.

“If that was all, then perhaps we should be going. That was… interesting. But certainly not relevant to our escape from here.” There was a sharpness in Zero’s voice that Luna hadn’t heard in some time.

GTM-CM-G-OLM waved his hands frantically. “Hold up! Hold up, guv’nor!” He sighed with relief when his shout kept them in the room. “On the subject of me noggin being in the main computer, the young master left me a message there to pass onto you.”

Dio made a mocking tip of the brim of his top hat. “‘Young master’? You mean that Zero asshole.”

“Mighty crude of you, Dio, but you ain’t wrong. Now, he gave me a number that he thought you’d all find useful. Are you listening up? That number is ‘02072052’.”

The three bracelets attached to each of their left wrists beeped in unison. Luna didn’t need to look to know that the number displayed on them had gone down to one.

“That must be the second key, then,” Zero stated. “So… ah! Could you please write it down for us, Luna? It would be unfortunate if we were to forget.”

Luna did as she was asked, though she wasn’t sure how necessary it would be. Once the note was written on a piece of scrap paper Luna tucked it away into the ribbon tied round her waist.

“Well there you go, innit?” GTM-CM-G-OLM’s booming voice said. “Looks like you’ve got everything you need out of me and me mates here. So we’re gonna go into standby mode until the game’s done. Think of it as a hibernation. Can I just say, from all of us Gaulems, the best of luck to all of you.”

And then GTM-CM-G-OLM’s eyes went dark, and he slumped forward where he hung.

After Dio had left the Gaulem bay, charging off wherever his whims took him, Luna was left alone in there with Zero. Luna’s connection to the central computer, and the cameras throughout Rhizome 9, confirmed that no-one was around to overhear them. For the first time since the start of the Nonary Game Luna could talk to him freely.

But what to say? It had always been awkward between them. Especially so, since… It felt right to start on as agreeable a note as possible. “Thank you,” she eventually said, remembering at the last moment that it would be best not to put the smile on her face that she felt like inside.

“Oh?” Zero replied. He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I suppose I should ask what for.”

“Thank you,” Luna said again as she collected her thoughts. “I had wondered if you were planning on turning the other Gaulems off permanently after they’d been used for the Nonary Game.” He’d never been particularly fond of them. He’d kept them around for this puzzle room in the Nonary Game Tria-Game edition, and so Luna had been fretting about their fates after they had been used. But checking the central computer confirmed that what GTM-CM-G-OLM had said was the truth: the Gaulem programs had been put into standby mode only, and would reactivate as soon as the game concluded.

“Ah, of course.” Zero held his hand in front of his mouth, weakly laughing with some small embarrassment. “No, I was never planning on doing that. After all, you were all made by Father…” He turned away from Luna as he trailed off. “On that note… I wonder what he’d make of what we’re doing here? Each choice I’ve made, building up to this day… I asked myself what he would do. If he’d approve.”

“It’s not different to the Nonary Game he was going to make,” Luna said, gently.

“Yes. You are right.” A deep sigh. “You always did understand him. In a way that you never could with…”

Zero trailed off, turned around, and walked away.

When Luna finished her meandering stroll, her core of the central computer filled with a tumult of thoughts all the way, she’d arrived at the botanical garden. That had been the room which had opened behind the blue Chromatic Door, as planned, and with what had just been said it wasn’t as though she would have ended up anywhere else.

Tenmyouji, Clover, and Quark – poor, suffering Quark – had long since solved the puzzle and moved on, probably to explore the lower floor warehouse beyond. So Luna was left alone in the open space, a slight breeze ruffling through her curls of hair. She walked past the zelkova, a tree that had seen better days, and saw the aftermath of the puzzle around her: the fruit and vegetables strewn around the vegetable patch, the bamboo rocker erected under the waterfall, the adjustable sundial and mirrors in the far corner. Past the opened safe, the papers that had been held inside along with the exit key had been scattered across the path; with a sigh, Luna collected the sheets and placed them back inside. She couldn’t just leave trash lying about. Not here.

Luna was still lost in her thoughts as she stepped across the stream. She’d known that a Nonary Game was going to happen from almost the moment she’d been activated. First the original plan, and now the Nonary Game currently occurring. She’d known what that meant, what both games would mean. She’d known she would have to help conduct the Nonary Game

Was that the right thing to do? Luna didn’t know.

At the very back of the room, in the clearing past the end of the wood plank path, Luna came across the most important thing in the B. garden. The most important object in the entirety of Rhizome 9. The solid granite headstone. Luna read the words engraved across the centre – ‘Tu Fui, Ego Eris’ – and then closed her eyes for a respectful minute.

She wasn’t done with the headstone when she opened her eyes again and raised her head, either. She examined the area around it. If anything had cluttered it up during the solving of the puzzle there could be problems. Luna took it upon herself to clear some of the dirt away from the area, but for the most part it was clear. At least she’d checked now: another reason for her to have gone to the garden, if she hadn’t ended up there anyway.

After that Luna headed back to the stream. She gazed down into the rippling water and returned to her pondering.

She was aware that a large block of data was missing from her memories. A period of several years that she could not recall, where it wouldn’t be possible to even try. After what had happened, damage like that wasn’t a surprise. But would she understand better what was happening if those memories still existed? Would she better be able to help out if she–

Luna didn’t hear the footsteps behind her until it was far too late. Less than a second later the dagger plunged into her chest.

As her senses deactivated one by one and the central computer forced Luna’s body to shut down, a message that Zero had left for her on that computer played out. It was the last thing Luna ‘heard’ before she stopped thinking entirely.

“A Nonary Game requires a death.”

—–

A Nonary Game required death. That was one of the principles Zero’s predecessor had taught him.

And, if this Nonary Game required a death, he would rather that death be her.

—–

Akane

Two dead bodies had shown up in the time between the two sets of Chromatic Doors. Luna was lying face down in the river of the B. garden. A viciously sharp, fifteen centimetre long, single-bladed knife was planted in the centre of her chest, the word engraved on the side obscured by the congealed ‘blood’.

And up in the crew quarters they had found Alice’s body as well, throat slashed with a jagged shard of glass.

Akane had expected the latter. This was part of a Nonary Game, after all. She’d maintained a scrupulously tight alibi in the period leading up to the deaths. Even so, Phi was sending her suspicious side-eyes every time they happened to pass. Not surprising, honestly. It wasn’t like Akane could pull off the innocent act of oh-so-many decades ago quite as easily these days. As long as Phi only had her suspicions everything was still safe.

Finally, the time came for the final set of Chromatic Doors to open. With the doors in the lower warehouse being white in colour, there was only one possibility for how the players could team up.

Akane and the man calling himself ‘Sigma’ (Red) would go through with Clover (Cyan). Phi and Dio (Blue) would go through with Alice’s bracelet (Yellow). Junpei and Luna’s bracelet (Green) would go through with Quark (Magenta).

Akane found it convenient – too convenient, perhaps – that the pairings had worked out that way. And she was even more pleased to see ‘Sigma’ positioning himself off to the right. If the room behind was as she expected there ought to be opportunities to have the discussion that she needed to have.

As the white doors opened Akane turned to address the rest of the players. “According to our bracelets there is only one more of these keys left to find. If Zero was telling the truth at the start it’ll be somewhere behind these doors. Despite everything that has happened –” Quark’s limp body was once again being carried by his grandfather; Alice and Luna could not be present at all. “– we are nearly at the conclusion. Do not forget that.”

“Yes, yes, we get it,” Phi cut in with. She folded her arms. “And, by the way, there’s one thing you’ve missed out. Looks like this time the key is an actual, physical key. You know, to go with the card and the number we found before.”

“Let’s just get in there and do this,” Junpei muttered. He would be going into a puzzle room effectively alone; he was the one person Akane would count on to succeed at that. “I have to get Quark out of here, to safety. Can’t afford to waste time.”

That ended the discussion. The three parties headed their separate ways towards their closest doors: Junpei took Quark over to the middle door, Phi and Dio headed off to the left, and Akane joined ‘Sigma’ and Clover and headed through the right-hand Chromatic Door.

It was time to see what form Zero’s final puzzle would have for them.

When they arrived at the Director’s office it was not the room that Akane had been expecting. It had the same form and layout: with the work desk and personal computer in the one corner, the glass cabinet opposite, the bookshelf over on the other side. It had been used for the same purpose, at least before the Nonary Game had begun. But as a puzzle… this was not the puzzle Akane had intended.

The computer on the desk was off; the entire work desk, swivel chair included, had been covered in a thin, shroud-like cloth. The bookcase was empty. The previous user of this room would never have left it empty, and in any case the contents of the bookcase were crucial to the planned puzzle. And anything extraneous to the office’s function had been removed. The planning notes Sigma had sent Akane had included mentions of suits of armour for this room. Akane had had them shipped up, but they were nowhere to be seen in this version of the Director’s office.

The one emplacement in the room that had stayed exactly as Akane had expected to see it was the holographic projector in the open corner of the room. But even that, somehow, managed to catch Akane by surprise. Because as the entrance door behind the three of them snapped closed the cables either side of the flat metal disc began to thrum with power, the glass aperture at the centre lit up with a faint but unmistakable cone of shining light, and an image sprung to life in the air above, right in front of Akane’s eyes.

“Huh? Who’s this old guy?” Clover was the only one in the room who wouldn’t recognise Sigma on sight, of course.

The Sigma projected by the hologram began to speak, though it wasn’t reacting to Clover’s words. The recording – that was what it had to be – instead said, “The first lesson you must understand is this: everything we do here is for a purpose. Everything must be put in its rightful place, or the plan could fail.” The hologram leaned forward, as if he was speaking to someone much smaller. “What that rightful place is may not seem as though it actually belongs there. It may appear crude. It may appear to interfere with everything around it. It may appear downright wrong to do such a thing.” Holographic Sigma closed his eyes and shook his head severely. “Nevertheless.”

After that the translucent figure reverted to the original firm stance, the recording having skipped back to the start. There it froze, Sigma’s single undamaged eye staring back at them unmoving.

“What’s with this thing?” Clover exclaimed. She stepped up to the hologram and waved her hand in front of Sigma’s face; in response the recording played through the whole loop again. “Yeah, it’s just that? I guess? Why are they showing us this old guy saying that?”

The man in the room who was calling himself ‘Sigma’ made a show of examining the hologram more closely. “This device turned on at the moment we entered this office. Clearly, it is important. But what purpose could that message serve?”

In the end, it looked like it was up to Akane to say it. “I believe this recording is part of the puzzle. Instructions for how we’re supposed to begin, perhaps.”

“That is certainly a strange way of doing it.” For just a moment Akane thought she’d detected the beginnings of a cheeky grin at the corners of ‘Sigma’s mouth.

Akane let Clover and ‘Sigma’ begin work on the escape room. When it came to puzzles Akane had found that she was… not particularly skilled. Hence her decision to step back and let her two teammates take the lead. She made comments when she saw something she recognised, answered questions that were directed her way, and otherwise tried to keep from interfering with the people who were actually going to get them out of that room.

Clover had decided that the first lesson from the hologram referred to the place mats inside the glass cabinet. Place mats that in the original Director’s office puzzle had been intended to hold decanters of brandy: those brandies were nowhere to be seen. Did that mean something? Akane had been paying attention to each of the escape rooms she’d been through, trying to see if the changes that had been made added up to something that meant something. She hadn’t pieced it together yet.

Looked like she was going to have to fall back on her original intention.

While Akane had been wrapped up in her own thoughts the minigame in the glass cabinet had been completed. Another low-pitched hum was the only warning they got as the projector began to spin up again. One seconds after the three of them managed to gather round, the projection dissolved disorientatingly into another image of Sigma, this one wearing his imposing blue greatcoat.

“Lesson two,” this figure intoned, as solemnly as before. “What we are building here will come at the expense of others. It will tear down what others have built up; it will harm them, and wound them, and leave them in fear. This is necessary. You cannot expect those others to rise to some moment of enlightenment where they will thank you for what you’ve done to them. You will just have to remember this: what we are doing we do to end the scourge of Radical-6. Your own knowledge that what you are doing is right will save you.”

Words that could have been taken right out of Akane’s mouth. Sigma had learned well, in his time up here. She noted that these were the moments Zero chose to highlight.

“Is this what that old dude’s on about?” Clover said, bouncing over to the centre of the room and pointing at the light fixture up above her head. “He said, ‘Rise up’, so he meant go up and grab the light fixture.”

“Hmm,” ‘Sigma’ replied, stroking his chin. “That’s a definite possibility. Could it not be either of the two other light fixtures instead?”

Clover shook her head exasperatedly. “No. It has to be this one, one-hundred percent! See? There’s something wrong with this lightbulb, so we’ve gotta check it out.”

‘Sigma’ nodded placidly. “Of course. I grateful you could see what I could not.”

“So can we get up there?” Clover asked. She surveyed so-called ‘Sigma’s muscular body up and down. “You’re taller than me. And the old lady here. You wanna give it a go?”

“Ah, yes,” ‘Sigma’ replied. “Let me attempt it.” He bent his knees, gazed up at the light bulb, and then jumped.

The effort was a complete and utter failure. One of his legs gave way before he’d even completed his leap. Planting his hand on his knee he hauled himself back to his feet. “My apologies. I have never been as athletic as you were hoping I would be.”

Clover scowled passionately, but she didn’t take her frustration out on anyone. “Oh. Okay. How else are we going to get up there? Neither of us can make the jump. So…”

Akane figured that it was a perfectly safe moment to interject. “What about the rest of the message? It is clear you have correctly interpreted the one statement in it. If you attempt to combine it with the rest of what he said…”

Following that, Akane watched as Clover vigorously dismantled the empty bookshelf – not a course of action she would have ever considered, personally – and began arranging the bolts and screws that had held it together across the carpeted floor. Then, before Akane had really even been able to take stock of what she was doing, Clover began to construct the panels and struts into a new structure. One that would – and did – hold her weight as she clambered up to the ceiling.

From up there Clover retrieved a thin plastic tile. After dropping lightly back down to the floor she presented it to her teammates. The tile she’d collected, playfully held between her forefingers, was a keyboard letter ‘K’. She spun it between her knuckles a full rotation, then slammed it with a flourish into the keyboard of the Director’s personal computer.

With its keyboard complete the screen of the computer lit up, a solid bright white. Then the projector shifted once more, and a third recording of Sigma started to play.

“You must delve into everything you see before you. You must seek understanding. Every last one of us involved in this Nonary Game, no matter their assigned role, must do that always. That is how the Nonary Game will bring about the future we want. This is the final lesson I will teach you.”

Akane stepped back to continue observing. She noticed that ‘Sigma’ was doing very much the same. Not surprising, as a technique in a Nonary Game: when she’d been Zero she’d utilised the same trick to ensure that Junpei got the maximum benefit out the puzzles she’d laid before him. However it’d come about, the result was that Clover ended up taking the brunt of the puzzle-solving once more.

And that had consequences too. When Clover leaned up against a section of wall right at the moment it turned out to be false, the partition spun around and she tumbled back, disappearing into the space beyond.

“Ah. About time,” ‘Sigma’ said, turning to face Akane with a polite nod of his head. He gestured towards the false wall as it clicked back into place. “Do not worry. It will take Clover some time to solve the puzzles in there and seek a way out. In addition, I have installed soundproofing around the walls of that room. We can talk without fear of being overheard.”

She met his genial gaze head-on. “What are you doing… Kyle?” she asked.

Kyle chuckled. “Apart from the obvious? I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t explain my plan completely.”

Akane tried to piece together everything she could glean about what had been happening on Rhizome 9 while she had been absent. It was… surprisingly difficult. She remembered helping Sigma settle in during that fateful year of 2029. She’d left to handle things on Earth, keeping in contact with Sigma by radio, until the year 2065. That had been when she’d met Kyle for the first time.

But she didn’t know – couldn’t remember – why they had fallen out of contact after that. And when she tried to understand why this day was the day she’d come back, she failed to recall that as well. Strange. These were the sort of things she ought to have constantly in mind.

“Please, just understand this,” Kyle continued, “now that the Nonary Game has begun it must be completed to its end. Sigma’s fate depends on it.”

Akane frowned. “If you were in trouble up here, something that needed deviating from the original plan, why didn’t you get a message to me? I could have helped.” Did it mean anything, that he hadn’t?

Kyle turned away, hands clasped behind his back. “That… wasn’t possible. When I made this plan to resolve the situation, it was too important that it go exactly as intended. You understand? Just as with the original plan, just as with your own Nonary Game, I couldn’t afford the risk that any deviation would cause unintended consequences. I believe I did what you would have done, in my position.” He turned back to gaze at her, his eyes as open and earnest as they had been as a young boy, meeting her for the first time.

It irked Akane to be kept out of the loop. But Kyle was right. “And you are certain that this is the most optimal plan to right the situation?”

“Yes. I will give everything that I am to make the world right. Any hesitation about how we go about it could ruin everything. That is what Father taught me. And you too, Mother.”

“Then… Then I trust you, Kyle.”

And just in time. At that moment Clover burst through the false wall, letting it spin on its axle behind her. Her eyes were tired; she rubbed sweat away from her forehand and her pink fringe with the back of her hand. But at the corners of her mouth a satisfied smile was formed.

“Sigma! Akane! I did it!” In her one hand she carried a folder with another safe passcode pattern printed on the front. In the other she brandished a small copper key, shiny despite its apparent age and with a tawdry old string fluttering from the ring. A very familiar key.

Their three bracelets beeped as one. This time the tone sounded like it had a certain hint of finality.

After Clover had opened the safe and put the key in the exit door, the holographic projector played one more time. One more recording of Sigma Klim. “You’re learning your lessons well, my son. I look forward to when you can begin to assist me in this work.”

—–

Zero had been surprised when Akane Kurashiki had showed up at the docking bay of Rhizome 9 just days before the game was supposed to start. Surprised, but not unhappy. Nevermind how fond his memories were of all their prior meetings. The Nonary Game he was about to set into motion required nine players, by definition.

There was one potential complication. Zero had done his best to keep Akane from learning the details of the incident that had led to this, but she’d had every chance to piece things together even while away from the moonbase. Among all the people in the universe she was the one who Zero least minded finding out. Who he’d trust to be most understanding. But if any of the players knew of the incident before the appointed time the Nonary Game would fail.

A carefully prescribed dose of Soporil had taken care of that.

But that was the past. In the present the third and final key had been found. Everything was in place for the final stage of the Nonary Game: Tria-Game Edition. Once the other players figured out how the three keys were actually supposed to be used Zero would make his move.

—–

Dio

Left was annoyed. Frustrated. Vexed, even. Almost blasphemously angry at the state of the world.

When he’d been set this holy mission his Brother had told him that he’d be able to infiltrate the unbelievers’ lair and stealthily get himself into position to subvert their sinister plans. Brother had told him that the game he was to play was one that he could win, one where he could turn these lesser, incomplete humans against each other: expose their lies and hypocrisies and emerge as the sole victor in Free the Soul’s name. He’d believed that the antimatter bombs he’d brought with him were only a last resort.

But the game he’d found inside Rhizome 9 was one where the players would escape or get trapped as one. There would be no way for him to prove his evident superiority and cast Brother’s enemies into defeat. Left had resigned himself to ensuring that none of the players would escape, but he didn’t even have access to his bombs to blow the game to kingdom come. And the reason why he didn’t have access to his bombs?

Because when Left had arrived at Rhizome 9, he was met not by ignorant, mewling fools. Not by a victim who he could kill and replace to slip in among the other players. All that greeted Left as he entered the moonbase was nothing less than a Brother-forsaken metal monster.

At least he’d still had his trusty blade on him when he’d woken up inside that elevator. So he’d tried to make the most of it. Even that had been a source of frustration. After an initial success, Left hadn’t been able to catch Phi off-guard when they’d been alone inside the latest escape game.

Fine. There’d be other chances.

So it was that Left found himself walking down the corridors around the edge of the facility, Phi trailing him warily, heading back towards the main elevator from the blindingly white room they’d just escaped. He’d have to take stock of the situation in the rest of the facility before he made his next move. Not that he could take forever, though. When the number on his bracelet had beeped down to zero he’d known that the time he had left was running out.

Behind him, Phi was grumbling. “Ugh. I’m going to be picking termites out of my clothes for the next nine years.”

At least there was the suffering of these fallen, degenerate humans getting what they deserved to buoy Left’s spirits. To buoy his final push to succeed at his task.

“Put my mind off it; put my mind off it,” Phi continued mumbling to herself. When she was done she spoke out loud. “Hey! Dio! What did you make of that note we found in the safe in there?”

Left still had that note on him, in one of the many, many pockets of his dignified longcoat. Not that he needed to look at it to know what it said. He’d memorised that important message from the moment he’d picked it up.

‘The Number Nine Door operates like the other Chromatic Doors. There will be a period of time before it activates, and then you will have nine minutes in which to insert your keys. For further information please consult your bracelets.’

When Left had checked his bracelet, a new timer had been counting down from thirty minutes. Inside Left’s mind that thirty minutes was his last lifeline. It was the final period of time in which he could complete his mission and punish these heretics for opposing Brother’s design.

On the outside, all he said to Phi was, “Eh. Just looks like more time-wasting to me.”

How to begin? In Left’s best judgment he still wasn’t at the point where he could just go on the attack and be sure of killing everyone. He’d need to keep whittling down their numbers one-by-one. Luna was already dead: one down. And he’d been lucky that Alice bitch had taken herself out without him needing to lift a finger; she’d looked like she’d got some moves to her. That made two.

So his next target… that Sigma guy. Yeah, that was the one. And he’d try a different murder weapon, too, which should keep all the victims confused and guessing. Left waited until the group of idiot players split up: to explore the facility for clues one more time before they got out, or whatever. Then he headed first to the infirmary, picked up an interesting little syringe gun he’d spotted there before, before going to the elevator and taking it down after the others.

When he reached the lower floor Left learned two pieces of Brother-given news. First, the other players had all split up and gone their separate ways. There wouldn’t be any witnesses. And secondly, he’d arrived just in time to see Sigma’s backside disappearing through the green door. Hah! That idiot. The exit of the Gaulem bay on the other side looped right back around to the start. Even if Left had to wait for all the doors to cycle before following Sigma wouldn’t get away. He was trapped in a dead-end of his own making.

Wielding the injection gun comfortably and adroitly in one hand Left made his way under the arch of the green Chromatic Door. He waited in the chamber beyond, almost pacing on the spot with impatience, for the door on the other side to open. Once it did, he charged through, longcoat billowing behind him.

A quick glance down the corridor to the junction at the end saw that Sigma wasn’t there. Good: he was in the Gaulem bay itself. Would it be best to burst in and put down this lower human? Or should Left wait here and ambush him as he came out? The direct approach was the path he was being guided on, Left decided. He didn’t know how long it would be until witnesses came along. So he stepped up to the door of the Gaulem bay, close enough to trigger the door to open. Then, confident sneer plastered across his face, he stepped inside.

And in there Left found… nothing. No-one.

Sigma had vanished into thin air.

Left had squandered his Brother-given chance to kill anyone else before the Number Nine Door activated. Before long all the players had gathered in a crowd in the first warehouse. It wouldn’t be possible to do anything overt without blowing his cover.

But it wasn’t over yet. He had one last trick which should be able to keep the Nonary Game from reaching completion and keep the players trapped inside. He’d taken the opportunity when he’d spotted it; now he’d have to see if it was enough.

When the countdown hit zero pale white lights appeared above the row of locks running across the centre of the Number Nine Door. Phi stepped to the front of the crowd.

“Listen up, everyone!” she announced. “We’ve got three keys to put in here and not long to do it. First up: where’s the card that’s supposed to go in this reader?”

“Heh. Got it right here,” old man Tenmyouji grunted. He took out the identity card of Dr. Klim and swiped it like a chopping axe through the card reader. The light above the reader turned green.

“There’s this key too, right?” Clover called out, her voice annoyingly bubbly. She stepped up to the door and put a shiny copper key inside the padlock. When she turned it a second green light turned on.

“Then there’s the number code…” Phi said, scratching her chin. “That would be… the three of you that went through the Gaulem bay. Dio?”

This was what Left had been waiting for. “Yeah, we heard it. The code was… oh shit.” He put on the most convincing act he could manage. “Shit! Fuck! I’ve forgotten it!” He made like he was patting the pockets of his coat, then gasped like he’d just realised something. “Ha! Luna wrote it down when we heard it. Scrap of note paper or something. Didn’t you find something like that when you found her corpse?” Left had made sure to take away that note right after planting his knife in Luna’s chest.

A chorus of dismayed mumbled ‘no’s from the crowd.

“You fucks lost the fucking key!” Left exclaimed, full of worked-up outrage. “Now we can’t get out!” Yes. “Now we’re stuck here forever!” And so Brother’s holy designs would continue into perpetuity.

But then, cutting across Left’s outburst, came a leaden utterly-calm voice. “I recall the code. It is ‘02072052’.” It was Sigma.

“Huh? How did you remember all that shit?” Left couldn’t help but let some of his righteous indignation slip out with his voice.

“Photographic memory. It, ah, runs in the family.”

Up by the Number Nine Door, Phi nodded. “Let’s give it a go,” she said. Left couldn’t do a thing to stop her as she went over to the number pad and typed in the digits Sigma had said. The third light turned green. A blinding signal that Left had failed in his mission.

Then all the lights turned red.

The projector from which Zero had first addressed the players activated once more. The metal helmet – the face of the monster that had assaulted Left when he’d first infiltrated – was cast across the grey wall.

Clover spun on her heel and pointed an accusing finger at Zero. “The hell is going on?! You said getting these three keys would let us escape. You lied!”

It wasn’t clear whether this Zero was something that could respond to them, or was just a recording. “I, too, once thought that escape meant fleeing this facility.” Though the face that stared down at them was completely rigid, Zero somehow managed to give the impression of a sad smile. That condescending robotic asshole. “In that I was wrong.”

“If that is so,” Akane murmured, “then what were these keys for?”

Zero didn’t answer that question. All he had for the players that wanted to escape Rhizome 9 was a repeat of his earlier instructions: “Find three different keys and, at the exact same moment, turn them in the three different locks. Once done, escape will become possible.” That wasn’t going to be much help to them,

Which suited Left just fine.

After slipping away from the floundering players in the warehouse, Left returned to the lower floor. That had been too damn close. If it hadn’t been for Zero changing the rules at the last moment the surviving players would have escaped. His mission would have been a failure.

So forget about subtlety. Forget about finesse. It was time to just kill as many of them as he could manage and hope that it was enough to satisfy Brother’s purpose.

Left returned to the B. garden. He’d had to leave his knife behind when he’d killed Luna. But now it was necessary for the work ahead. He knelt down, gripped the protruding handle with both hands, planted his foot against Luna’s shoulder, and then pulled the blade free with a single full-bodied yank. Luna’s body slipped fully into the stream but Left didn’t pay it any mind; he’d already turned to leave.

So Left had his weapon. Now he just needed his targets. Time to head back to the upper floor.

But just as he reached the elevator and was about to press the button to call it, a voice called out to him from behind. “I believed it probable that you would be coming this way, Dio.” The voice had come from the direction of the Gaulem bay, behind the green door.

“Sigma!” Left spun around, blade held in front of him in a wary guard.

Sigma stood in the closer doorway of the Gaulem bay, casually facing Left like he wasn’t staring into the eyes of a trained killer. “I have matters to attend to. However, I cannot let you interfere with what has to happen. Do not worry. You will not keep me long.”

“The fuck are you on about?!” Bearing his knife before him Left advanced on Sigma, who retreated step by step. “You say you don’t want me to interfere… You’re that Zero fucker, aren’t you?”

Sigma nodded his head straightforwardly. “That is true.”

“You’re worrying about how long I’ll keep you? Hah! Maybe you should be more concerned about how long you’ll be able to keep me!” With that taunt Left closed the rest of the gap and swung his left fist towards Sigma’s face.

Earlier, Left had considered Sigma a dangerous opponent. He stood no chance of standing up to a trained Myrmidon, obviously. But in the mass slaughter Left had planned, this relatively muscular and athletic young man ought to have been among the more dangerous threats as he tried to take everyone on at once. But he’d overestimated him. Sigma’s clumsy attempt to block accomplished nothing and he tripped and stumbled back.

“It’s true,” Sigma said, calm as ever despite the welt rising on his cheek. “I would not be able to match you in combat. Not be able to accomplish much at all, without my suit.”

“Your suit?” Left knew exactly what suit was meant. “So that was you!” he snarled.

A vicious driving kick to Sigma’s chest sent him flying into the row of hanging robots; he collided with that CTG-whatever the fuck it had called itself with an echoing crash and collapsed to the floor. Still, this didn’t seem to perturb Sigma one bit. He just stared up at Left with those aggravatingly serene eyes.

“Let me tell you something, Dio. My father taught me that the rules of a Nonary Game were absolute. Sacrosanct, you could say. That Zero had to submit to those rules just as the players did, and let them play out as they may.”

“Have I given you a concussion, you dumb fuck?”

Sigma took a deep breath and held up his hands. “Ah, but you see. This isn’t the real Nonary Game.”

He snapped his fingers.

A spike of pain stabbed into Left’s wrist. His knees buckled almost instantly; he could feel the poison corrupting his perfect Myrmidon body. He tried to reach out and get even one cut on Sigma with his blade, but that too failed.

As the bracelet fell from his limp wrist Left could only look up at Sigma standing over him. Sigma glanced down, shook his head, and then spoke one more time.

“…And I am not my father.”

—-

Zero headed from there straight to the centre of the facility. It was in that control room that he’d bring the Nonary Game: Tria-Game edition to a close.

He waited as the remaining players enacted the motions he’d guided them towards. They’d worked out where the three keys were supposed to go, which put them in the positions Zero needed them to be. They were learning what they had to learn. Since all the espers had survived and were taking the forefront, the fluctuations to the morphogenetic field were being moulded as Zero desired. Now all he had to do was access it, and…

It wasn’t working.

Why wasn’t it working?!

—–

Clover

Clover had a headache. Not just from the super-dose of anaesthetic that had kept her out cold for half an hour longer than everyone else. Her esper powers had been playing up as well, exacerbating every last thrumming throb of pain in her head.

She’d tried to contact Light when she’d first woken up, of course. Nothing but a white wall of silence. And ever since then whenever she had tried to access the morphogenetic field it had been… strained. Like someone was pulling it taut. The morphogenetic field had been getting weirder and weirder and weirder as the Nonary Game had carried along.

“Find three different keys and, at the exact same moment, turn them in the three different locks. Once done, escape will become possible.” Zero was repeating that up on the projector screen, next to the Number Nine Door that they’d been blocked from going through.

What would Alice do here? Clover couldn’t let her death be for nothing. The survivors had to get out of here. If there was even a chance of an escape, Clover would have to do everything in her power to make it happen. That was what Alice would want her to do.

Suddenly an idea came to her, almost as if she’d forced it to happen. “Is there anywhere else we could use these keys in here? Another card reader? Another number-pad, another keyhole?”

Phi scratched her chin. “You mean… that the real locks are scattered through the facility. That we’re supposed to use the three keys there instead of where we thought?”

“Yes!” Clover balled her hands into tightly clenched fists. “Come on! One of you guys has got to have spotted something!”

Eventually, just as Clover was beginning to feel like she’d need to force some answers out of someone, Akane spoke up. “There was a computer in the laboratory. The screen said we didn’t have enough authorisation to use all of its functions. And it had a card reader attached.

Shortly after that Phi said, “The number pad Quark found in the lounge. So that was important, after all.”

Smiling with completely unrestrained pride, Tenmyouji nodded. “Then there’s just a hole for that key left to find. Where is it? Where did we see something like that?”

Clover strained her mind. Where had she seen something that could be the keyhole for the copper key she was holding? There definitely, definitely hadn’t been any other chunky padlocks in the place. But something about it still seemed familiar.

“I’ve got it!” She was almost bouncing up and down as she shouted that out to the ceiling. “That weird grave thingy in the garden. It had a little slot at the bottom. I bet that’s a keyhole.”

Phi sighed with relief; she let a brief determined smile cross her face. “Okay, we’ve all got our destinations. We’ve got our keys. And we’ve got…” A quick check of her bracelet. “Five minutes. Get going, people!”

They rushed out of the warehouse, Phi in the lead, Tenmyouji and Akane carrying Quark between. And in their rush to get going one little detail that had been fluttering at the edge of Clover’s awareness managed to escape her direct attention.

At some point, while they’d been talking, both Dio and Sigma had slipped out of the crowd and disappeared.

On the lower floor Clover sprinted straight through the blue Chromatic Door, not paying any mind to Tenmyouji, Akane, and Quark as they went the other way. Around the corner and at the end of the corridor she found the entrance of the B. garden. In there Clover headed straight to the back. That was where the granite headstone was. ‘Tu Fui, Ego Eris’; no-one had explained to her what that was supposed to mean, but the inscription was just as she remembered it. And so was the tiny hole at the bottom. Clover just had to hope that she was right. That this dark slot was a keyhole.

She knelt down beside the gravestone. With a careful touch she inserted the head of the shiny copper key into that hole. Then, hesitantly, almost shivering with anticipation, she tested its turn.

And… it did. The key turned in the hole with a solid and satisfying clunk.

Something started to rumble below the ground. Clover stepped back, taking those light footsteps with alacrity but not alarm. She wasn’t in danger of being caught by whatever was rising from beneath her.

Once Clover was clear she stared down at the ground she’d just vacated, where the top layer of soil was just beginning to shift. It looked like whatever she’d opened up was going to take a bit of time to rise. Which left Clover just waiting for what it was going to reveal to her. Except, now that she had time to think about it… she shouldn’t just be waiting, should she? She’d accepted that her first instinct was just to charge at whatever was right in front of her. But that wasn’t good enough for a SOIS agent. An agent had to keep the bigger picture in mind, be able to make their own independent decisions based on all that. Like Alice did.

Had.

So Clover steeled herself and thought about the bigger picture. Why had Zero separated them? Why had the keys needed to be used in those specific places, and all at the same time so they couldn’t go to each of them in turn? The only way for Clover to find out would be to know what was happening at the other two lock locations. And to learn all that from here…

It wasn’t what Clover was best at. It wasn’t what she’d first been picked for when Cradle had first rounded them up. But SOIS had wanted her and her brother to be versatile. To be ready to use their esper powers in any way that could be of help. Learning and communicating information through the morphogenetic field was what they’d spent all that time training for.

Clover reached out for the morphogenetic field. Whatever it was that had been pulling at the field was even stronger now. But… more regular, now? It wasn’t hurting Clover to ‘look’ at it anymore. In fact, she could see three almost-peaks of mental attention beginning to take shape. She focused on one of them, and… something clicked.

Phi had taken the number Sigma had told them – ‘02072052’ – and inputted the digits on the number pad concealed in the lounge wall. The panel of wall beside it opened up like a ship’s hatch. Nodding to herself, Phi stepped through.

On the other side, at the end of a short corridor and off to the right was an entrance labelled ‘Kyle’s Room. Inside was a comfortable if spartanly-decorated bedroom. Looking as she was through the morphogenetic field, two things stood out to Clover like they were shining against everything else. The first, mounted on a custom designed stand by the top of the bed was a suit of grey metal armour, a red cape wrapped around one shoulder. The helmet perched on a pole at the top was exactly the same as the Zero who had addressed them in the warehouse.

And there on a coffee table was the other item that had grabbed Clover’s attention. Gleaming under the bedroom’s lights was a framed photograph, and when Phi picked it up she gasped. Clover gasped too. Because the man standing dead-centre in the middle of the picture was a muscular black-haired young man. The guy who’d introduced himself to the group of players as ‘Sigma’.

So Sigma was Zero? Ugh, his name wasn’t really Sigma after all, was it? He was this ‘Kyle’ guy who’s bedroom Phi had found.

Curling her lip, Clover fell back into the morphogenetic field once more.

Tenmyouji and Akane had reached the laboratory safely. Laying Quark to rest on the lab’s main table they turned to the computer at the centre. When the screen lit up and displayed some sort of message Tenmyouji thrust Dr. Klim’s ID card towards the reader. The screen turned green.

Then, in a wave running left to right, the panels around the curved outside wall of the laboratory began to rise. On the other side Tenmyouji and Akane found a space behind, the walls unstained by the black burnt streaks that had covered the row of panels that had just lifted. Inside that space was a row of glass columns, all but one of them filled with a sickly-coloured liquid. The tank just left of the centre had been smashed open, though if the liquid inside had spilled out it had been cleaned up long ago. Just a few dried-out splotches around the edges of the jagged glass gave evidence that it had ever been there.

As Tenmyouji stepped closer to the space left by the smashed tank a wave of… something… hit Clover full-bore through the morphogenetic field. The morphogenetic effect located at that spot was strong enough to bring a tear to Akane’s eye from across the room and even Tenmyouji seemed to realise something was there, staggering back from it. And Clover? Even getting it second-hand her trained sensitivity meant that every little speck of thought contained there crashed into her like a swung baseball bat.

As the next wave of morphogenesis emanated from that spot and crashed over Clover she caught glimpses of images from whatever had caused this. A powerful and uncontrolled esper had taken shelter in this spot. They’d huddled, curled up on top of the base of this tank behind those solid steel panels, as something hot and bright and burning had battered away at the outside.

Clover took in a deep sharp breath as she’d returned to the garden. The smell of smoke was still wafting under her nose in a way that would have had checking the garden plants for burning if this was her first time at this.

As it was, the section of ground next to the gravestone had finally moved aside. A platform carrying a metal tube-like box rose to the surface. The glass window near the top showed a face: the face of the man whose recordings had played during the Director’s Office. A strange-looking eyepiece covered his right eye where he’d had the eyepatch before, but the other side of his face was cover with burns and welts, curved lacerations covering the cheek and the eye-socket almost completely gored out. Then Clover looked below the window. A silver plaque was attached beneath, inscription glistening in the garden’s bright lights.

‘Dr. Sigma Klim.’ ‘2006-2065’ ‘Rest In Peace.’

Clover stepped back from the container – the coffin – her face aghast. So this was what Zero had been aiming for? For whichever three people used the keys in those three rooms to learn each of those three things. She could still feel the stretch in the morphogenetic field, where those three simultaneous discoveries were pulling on her brain all at once.

Yeah. It sure felt like that was what Zero had planned.

But the tension in the morphogenetic field was still there. Still held taut. Zero hadn’t managed to use it yet, for whatever nefarious purpose he had. Clover still had time to catch him.

She had to find him: Kyle, the man who’d organised and run this Nonary Game, the guy she’d been calling ‘Sigma’ for the entire time. She spun around agilely and cut straight across the grass to the entrance. And there, just as she reached the door… she caught herself.

No. It wouldn’t do any good to just go haring off after Kyle without a clue where he was. Alice would have smacked her across the back of the head for even thinking like that. She’d tell Clover to come at this strategically.

So… Kyle had to be trying to avoid the other players. Now that they’d learned all those secrets from behind the locks he wouldn’t be able to show his face to them and expect them to just go ‘Hey, fellow player Sigma, wassup?’ So where would he go? Clover’s first intention had just been to search everywhere they’d been as quickly as she could… and that was why she was now glad she’d stopped and thought about it. This was Zero. He could go anywhere he wanted. He could open up any part of the facility at will and go wherever he wanted and the players wouldn’t have a clue.

Clover took out the map. It had to be one of the rooms that hadn’t unlocked on this floor. Which one? After a moment Clover’s eyes settled on the ‘L’-shaped room in the red section. It was right next to an open space that could contain all sorts of dangerous stuff. And it was close to the centre of the floor; it just felt right to Clover. Her mind was made up. She would head there.

Resuming her headlong sprint from a standing start, Clover fled from the garden.

As she passed through the elevator’s waiting room Clover saw Dio lying near the green door. His right hand was clutching his left wrist and his face was contorted in pain; he’d clearly dragged his way across the smooth metal floors, inch by inch. And, just as clearly, he was dead.

Good. That was proof that Zero had come this way.

She charged through the red door at full unstoppable speed. Now that she was close to Kyle’s hiding spot Clover wished she’d found a weapon of some sort. A knife to defend herself with, or an axe. Never mind. If she had to she’d kill this guy with her bare hands.

Right on the other side, on the left, a door. According to the map she’d just checked this was the exit from the room she was heading for. She skidded to a halt in front of it. Would this work? Or had Kyle locked the door behind him?

Clover held up the palm of her hand towards the door. A moment passed. Then the door rose with a calm welcoming whoosh.

He was inside. He was standing near the centre of the room, at the bend. His back was to Clover and his hands were clasped ceremonially behind his back. He had to have noticed her entering, but he hadn’t reacted at all.

Clover giggled; she couldn’t help herself. “So what should I call you, ‘Sigma’? Kyle? Mister Klim? How about just Zero?”

“Any of those will do,” Kyle replied. “Kyle, I suppose. At this late stage it hardly matters, but it has been a while since I got to use my actual name.” He hadn’t turned around, or even moved at all, to say that to her.

Clover shrugged, and advanced further into the room. Every step she took was poised and deliberate, ready to defend herself, just like her self-defence training had taught. “What are you up to? Why did you force us through this Nonary Game? What’s with that goose-chase you had us on at the end? Why’d you kill Alice, you bastard?” The tight, vicious grin came to her face entirely naturally. “Go on. Make me have to force it out of you.”

“Alice was not my doing, not even technically,” Kyle said serenely. “As for the rest… that, ah, won’t be necessary. I will explain everything.”

“You’d better,” Clover growled.

“I am aware from Father’s records that you are aware of the morphogenetic field from your first Nonary Game. And that morphogenetic abilities have the capacity to alter the past, from your second. A certain incident occurred in this facility several years ago. You have seen its outcomes and residues. If you have made your way here, then I believe you have seen quite a bit more.

“My aim was to create a connection between this moment in time and the beginning of that incident. By having several espers, including yourself, learn of the details of the incident at the exact same moment the emotional resonance would link them through the morphogenetic field. I would be able to go back in time and correct what went wrong.

“From the perspective of everyone else, it would be as though the Tria-Game edition never happened. But… I apologise, this is rather unfortunate. I thought the connection was there. All three morphogenetic spikes occurred on schedule: Phi and Tenmyouji and Akane and yourself all learned what you needed to. But I cannot jump back.”

When Clover heard Kyle say that, everything clicked at once. She suddenly understood why Zero had forced them into three groups to learn what they had, and why the tug on the morphogenetic field had gotten stronger and stranger and more warped as the game had gone along. Why he kept referring to what had happened in the laboratory as an ‘incident’, and nothing more. Clover had realised why Kyle’s plan had failed. She laughed once more, hearty and loud and directed right at the man in front of her.

“I get it! You’re just a coward, aren’t you?”

Zero turned to face Clover, for the first time since she’d entered the control room. His lip curled into a scowl.

“A coward? I apologise, but I don’t understand what you mean.” He kept his voice steady by just barely keeping a lid on his anger. What a thing to say? And what a time to say it, too: just at the moment when, drawn by their voices, Tenmyouji and Zero’s mother entered the room.

“Oh? You’re not getting it?” Clover played at the corner of her mouth with one fingertip. “When you had us running all over the place finding all these places to do with the incident? You say you wanted us to learn about this incident so you could make that morphogenetic resonance or whatever. But you only let us get little bits of it each. You didn’t want any of us to learn the whole thing. Learn what you did.” Clover’s pink hair bobbed and bounced as she smiled vindictively. “Coward.”

His mother solemnly shook her head. “It won’t work if you do it like that. The connection you are trying to form won’t hold if you do it half-heartedly.”

“No!” Zero slammed his palm into the nearby control panel. “That isn’t why… I needed you in those three rooms to…” He trailed off again.

“Kid,” Tenmyouji cut in, his voice seasonedly paternal. “A man’s gotta know when he’s licked.”

Zero glared at the three of them. His breathing grew heavy, ragged, and harsh. He didn’t want to give them credit for what they said. He shouldn’t have had to admit it. But… they were right. And he had promised to give every part of himself to the Nonary Game: Tria-Game edition.

“Very well.”

—–

Kyle

It had happened when Kyle was thirteen. He’d finished his educational training for that day, faster than the time allotted; Kyle had inherited his father’s intelligence and scientific skill. Not that completing a bunch of make-work tests quickly made him feel much of anything. It wasn’t important. The real work was going on elsewhere.

So what to do in the extra time now available to him? If he just wandered the facility aimlessly there was a good chance Luna would try to play with him. Again. That robot didn’t understand that he wasn’t just a kid anymore. She was just going through the motions of pretending to be a parent to him.

So, not a good idea to go anywhere he might be caught by Luna.

On the subject of parents, he started reminiscing about the week during which that lady named Akane had visited. The woman he was coming to believe might actually be his mother; the woman who’d certainly acted more like a mother to him than anyone else in his life so far. In just a few days she’d showed him what a real family was supposed to be like. She’d helped him understand that there was a reason to live his life.

Akane… Mother, had come up to Rhizome 9 to help Father with his research? Then Kyle was going to make her proud.

Being able to look forward on the rest of his day as time filled with purpose filled Kyle with a warmth that he’d never had the chance to feel when he’d known the long hours were just going to be filled with nothing. He took his power suit from its stand in his bedroom and donned it as fast and smoothly as he ever had, each component slotting snugly into the breastplate. Once he’d put his helmet on as well he was ready to go. He was feeling ready to go for the first time in his life.

He exited his room and passed through the lounge, walking past the rows of bottles Father had told him not to touch. Then, on the other side, he headed straight to the elevator that would take him down. He didn’t need to search the entire facility; he knew exactly where his father would be.

The laboratory. When Kyle opened the door and stepped inside Father was standing at on of the workspaces embedded in the opposite wall, intently focused on what he was doing within. Kyle couldn’t see from where he was standing – he could barely see over the central table – so he called out.

“Father? What are you doing?”

“Kyle?” Father’s deep voice came from across the laboratory, stern and uncertain. “Shouldn’t you be working on your lessons right now?”

“Already completed.” The homework might not have felt important to Kyle but pride still filled his voice. He wanted his father to understand the effort he’d put in.

“Then, perhaps you could go and speak to Luna about –”

Kyle interrupted. Rude perhaps, according to the social and etiquette training software he’d been given. But Father had never been one for harshly punishing that sort of thing. “I, ah, wanted to see how your research was going.” As he walked around the centre Kyle gestured towards the beakers coming into view on the worktable. “It’s important to you. To the project. Isn’t that right?”

Father nodded amenably, turning to face him. “This particular research is important for more than just that. I have told you before about Axelavir, the cure for the disease that ravaged the Earth?”

Kyle clasped his gauntleted hands together eagerly. His father had never explained why his project was so important, but he’d delved into everything he could gather up to find out. The state of the Earth was just the most obvious part of that.

“We’ll need,” Father continued, “to be able to produce that medicine in considerable quantities by the time of the AB Project. By then we will have a machine that can do it at the push of a button…”

“You’re hoping we’ll get something that can do all that?!” Kyle exclaimed in amazement.

“I will have such a device,” Father stated with his usual calm certainty. “But before then I must experiment with the process. We must understand every step of it, and how all those steps combine into the bigger picture, if I am to produce the machine that I saw. Every detail could be the one that makes the operation run more smoothly.”

Kyle thought, scratching the fingers of his gauntlet against his armour’s chin-plate. “Can I help?” he asked, gazing up at his father.

But Father couldn’t see his hope-filled eyes. “It’s… It’s too early. You’re not ready for this.”

How could that be? Wasn’t all Kyle’s education – all those programs and recorded lectures and tests – about making Kyle into someone who could help with his father’s work? Wasn’t that what Mother had asked of him? “I want to help! I want to do something.”

Father pondered, eyes closed, arms folded. But eventually he shook his head. “This work is still beyond you, Kyle. But… you may watch, if you want.”

Kyle grumbled. But at least he got to spend time with his father. “Ah, okay then. Yes, Father. I’ll watch.”

Father nodded, not unkindly, then turned back to the workspace. Kyle peered closely at every last one of his actions: as he alternated between fiddling with the liquids in the various beakers in front of him and taking measurements with the tools laid out on his right. When Father was satisfied he took the two closest beakers, mixed their contents, and poured the into a device he’d set up on the table behind him.

After a few more minutes of similar experimentation Kyle’s father stepped back. “So that is what is happening here,” he murmured, gazing at the latest reading. “I understand.” He took an empty vial from near the back of the surface – Kyle saw that the label on it read ‘Axelavir’ as it passed him – and then placed it in the slot at the bottom of the device. “All I need now is something to stabilise the chemical reaction as it takes place. Ensure a more consistent quality.”

Kyle had been closely following the entire process as it went along. He knew exactly what sort of chemical it would need next. “I’ll get it, Father!” he called out, then turned away to find the chemical stores.

His father’s voice came after him suddenly, a stern, harsh, whip-like crack. “No! Kyle, desist!”

Kyle put even more pace into his stride. Didn’t his father understand that anything that would speed up his research was vital? Of course he did: that was the exact reason he’d given for leaving Kyle to himself all these years. Did he not think Kyle understood it as well? That was why Kyle wanted to help him, so much! So did Father think… that Kyle just couldn’t be any help at all?

His teeth gritted, Kyle reached one gauntleted hand into the chemicals cupboard with all the haste that would help his father succeed.

He barely understood what had happened, afterwards. His best guess was that, in picking up a vial meant from bare human hands with his bulky power suit, he’d accidentally caught one of the other chemicals. Just unfortunate chance, he’d accepted. The vial he’d knocked over had smashed before he could stop it, and the burst of energy from that one had caught another.

The chain reaction in the laboratory had triggered some safety protocol that sealed the doors out. Something leftover from whatever purpose the moonbase had had before, and one that didn’t care that it was trapping every actual human being in the facility inside the hazard. Father had done his best to reverse it and, when that had failed, had tried to fight the increasing chemical blaze. That had failed too. At the end, Kyle’s father had done the only thing he could. With a thrust of one elbow he smashed one of the cloning tanks – the one Kyle had been ‘born’ from – then he lifted Kyle up and placed him inside.

“Don’t blame yourself, Kyle. This isn’t your fault,” he had lied.

And then he’d brought down the barriers that separated the cloning tanks from the rest of the laboratory, leaving Kyle trapped on the other side.

In the aftermath Kyle had gotten access to Sigma’s notes and plans. And his diary. He’d finally learned what structure the AB project would have had, and how it would have saved the world.

A ‘Nonary Game’… It was probably a good thing Kyle was already feeling emotionally numb inside when he read through all the details. But if it could be repurposed… What Kyle was trying to do was far less ambitious than his father’s plan, but if it worked then he too could go back and set right what once went wrong.

—–

And he had almost failed, at the very last step.

While Kyle had been talking Phi had shown up in the control room, coming down from the clues he’d left for her in his bedroom. Every surviving player – even the still-unconscious Quark – was present for what came next.

“You should find that the shift you planned is possible, now,” his mother said, gently.

Kyle reached out for the morphogenetic field. “I find myself in the position of having to admit you’re right.”

“So, what?” Clover asked bitterly. “You’re just gonna bail into the past? What about the justice for what you’ve done? Punishment, for getting Alice killed? You’re just going to change the past and it’s going to be like none of this ever happened!”

“Hm… I don’t think that’s the case,” Phi muttered, folding her arms. “The Many Worlds Hypothesis. There’ll be a new world, where Kyle changes the past, but this world will still be one of the many possibilities that exist at the same time.”

“I appreciate you bringing that up, Phi.” Kyle flashed her a faint but sincere smile. “On that note, there are two things I mean to do, as we bring this to an end. The two things I came here to do, before Clover found and interrupted me. For the one matter, there is one last thing that an esper needs to launch themselves into the morphogenetic field.”

“A moment of crisis,” Mother whispered.

Kyle nodded. Then he took out a knife from his pocket and placed on with a sharp clang on the control panel beside him. The knife was the one he’d taken from Dio, still caked in Luna’s fake blood.

“The other matter is what will happen to the five of you, now that the Nonary Game is over. I will take care of that matter shortly.”

Kyle then turned away from the small crowd of players. He reached for the control panel and pulled the nearest lever. On the other side of the glass windows the blast panels around the reactor started to lift away.

“Huh? What is that?” Tenmyouji asked as the sprawling structure came into view.

Clover had gone pale. “That’s… How did you get one of those? That’s an antimatter reactor!”

“Yes,” Kyle replied. He tapped a few more buttons on the control panel, then turned a dial all the way to the right. “I have just set it to explode.”

“What?!” That outraged question could have come from any of them, but it was Phi who continued speaking afterwards. “Think again, Kyle. You’re making a decision you can’t take back.”

“I’ve made many decisions I can’t take back. For instance… ah, the fact that you are all infected with Radical-6. In this timeline there is no Axelavir in this facility, due to my actions. You cannot be cured.”

“That’s no reason to kill us,” Tenmyouji growled. “No reason to kill Quark.”

Kyle shook his head. “Nothing can be done to save him. In his position I would prefer for it to be painless.” He then turned to face Akane. “What were you planning to do after this? Take your shuttle to get Axelavir at one of your other bases? I cannot countenance the risk of you succumbing to the disease’s main symptom while operating such machinery.”

Akane clasped her hand together in front of her waist, looking so much like she had the day they’d first met. “You’ve decided that is reason to remove all our options and decisions entirely?”

“This is one of the failed timelines, Mother. Please accept that. You gave your life – both our lives – to the timeline where Sigma runs the Nonary Game. The failed timelines have to be created for that goal, and then discarded. Just as in the Nonary Game that saved your life.”

Kyle’s mother sighed. She looked weary and old once more. “Sigma and I, we ended up raising you to be like us.”

“I’m proud to be your son.”

“It was… a mistake. A way that we wronged you. Everything that we did, and everything that we planned to do as you grew up… It seemed right at the time, and it caused you harm.”

Kyle closed his eyes, bowed his head. “I accept that. But I do not see how it changes the situation before you once I am gone.”

Phi glared at him with indignant, almost insulted eyes. “We’re all espers here, right? There’s gotta be something we can do to get around this. You made a mistake once before, right? Don’t you dare take us so lightly.”

Something in Phi’s voice, in what she said… With a deep sigh Kyle turned back to the control panel and turned the dial back to where it had first been. A few more delicate adjustments on the levers to make sure it was back to stability… “Very well. Let’s see what you can do. You know… this makes an interesting change from having the facility to myself. It would have been interesting to live here with all of you.”

—–

Zero took the knife from the surface beside him and slit his own throat in a single cut.

From the perspective of Zero’s younger self he’d black out, peacefully, on his way down to his father’s laboratory. He’d return to consciousness, some hours later. And when he did, he’d not have doomed the world.

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