The Next Room

Dinner proved to be Victor Cameron assigning Christina to a "table"; a group of people who all shared a ladle. There weren't enough bowls or spoons to go around, so someone from the table would go and fill their ladle from the pot of soup, bring it back, and everyone would pass it around. Then someone else would do the same thing until everyone had eaten their rationed portion. It was messy and inconvenient, but hot soup after what felt like an eternity of salt water and stale bread was like a banquet. Christina ended up in a group that included Rebecca, Asher Elliot, Adrian Caster and Wayde Cage.

"So Christina, tell us about yourself." Adrian said almost the moment she had sat down. He was one of the Captains. He was more slender than the majority of the heavily muscled group, with thick black hair and a tattoo of the Jack of Hearts on his left arm.

"I don't know much, I'm sorry." she muttered, feeling shy. The overkill of testosterone in this company was beginning to make her uncomfortable, as if she had to live up to some kind of expectation set by these soldiers and even by the girls. "My name and my age. It was September twenty-ninth when I came here. I didn't like the dress I came in. And I recognized the book that had writing on it in the lighthouse."

"Most people don't even know that much." Adrian nodded thoughtfully. "I came in February. Valentine's Day, actually. But that's all I know. Time here is different, almost like it doesn't exist. But I'm sure you've noticed that."

Wayde Cage ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair and turned his caramel eyes on Christina. "You gave our Guides a hell of a time on the Beach, you know."

"How'd you mean?" she asked, feeling clammy. She didn't like talking about the Beach.

"Three days? That's longer than a lot of us put together." he barked laughter. "So you've got endurance. That's got to be good for something."

There it was again. Everyone had to be good for something here. The utilitarian mindset made her feel almost worthless, despite the compliment. Inherent value as a person didn't matter here, clearly.

The last man at the "table", Asher Elliot, seemed to know how she felt. He met her eyes for a moment, and inside them she saw a terrible sadness that seemed to reach into her heart and pump it dry of blood. His thick brown hair seemed almost to quiver with the anticipation of something tragic to happen. She bit her lip and looked back down at her food.

When the meal was over, Max called for bedtime after setting the guards of Axel Damon, Kyle Beckham and Reagan Quinn. Christina went to the girl's corner and immediately lay down, listening to the clatter of Victor Cameron gathering the ladles and the low murmur of masculine voices talking.

"Hi." Rebecca dropped a blanket on top of her. "Malcolm said you can have his. Most of the guys give their stuff up for us." She lay next to Christina and turned her head to look at her. "What do you think of them?"

"The men? They're great." she said automatically. "I mean...they seem very useful."

"What did you think of Asher?"

"He - he seems sad." Christina didn't know why she was asking her these things.

"Yeah." Rebecca turned into her back. "He's different."

"He's dressed differently." Christina realized suddenly. "He wears more of a trench coat, and a blue scarf. Every else has more military outfits."

Rebecca didn't answer for a moment, then said "he's not a soldier."

"No?"

"He feels...useless." now that she had brought it up, Rebecca seemed unwilling to talk about it. "I'd like to help him, but I don't know how, you know? I'm pretty useless myself."

"I'm sure you're useful for something." Christina said sarcastically, and Rebecca gave a little laugh, then touched Christina's hand and said softly "goodnight."

"Goodnight." she responded and pressed her cheek against the floor, feeling the thin blanket on her bare arms. She tried to remember what Malcolm looked like, then gave up. The names, she supposed, would come in time.

A loud whistle woke her up, and she sat up very fast, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

"It's wake-up time." Giulia told her, getting up swiftly and rolling up her blanket. "Breakfast in five!"

Scarlet and Rebecca were also on their feet. Christina's whole body ached and she wanted to go right back to sleep, but drowsily she stood and clumsily folded her blanket.

"Anyone have any brain waves last night?" Alpha asked them as he passed, his piercing blue eyes seeming to x-ray Christina's whole body. His strawberry blonde hair didn't seem to match his stern face at all.

"You could use some." said Kyle Beckham as he passed, chewing on a cigar. A hoot of laughter went up from some of the nearby men. He approached Christina and smiled at her, pulling the smoke from his mouth. "If you ever find any of these and don't use them yourself, I'll take them off you hands." he told her, and looked mournfully at the stick in his hand. "I'm down to my last two."

"I'll let you know, I'm sure." Christina murmured. Kyle grinned and sauntered off. Alpha shook his head and followed him.

"Hey, you ladies seen Max?" asked Kent, walking into their midst and turning his head every which way, a hand on each of Giulia ad Scarlet's shoulders. "Morning, Christina. Sleep okay?"

"Yes, thanks." she answered, wishing people would stop talking to her. Now that they were in close proximity, she could easily see the resemblance between Alpha and Kent, besides the fact that their first names matched so perfectly. Both had blue eyes and face that suggested a sweet nature, except that Kent's smile muscles seemed put to far more use than his brother's. Both also had a stocky build and eyebrows with a permanently sad look, or perhaps just a dreary one. Kent's light brown hair stuck up in a sort of cowlick in the front that made him appear younger. Christina tried to imagine everyone asserting that you and another man were brothers when you had no memory of the fact. It must be stressful and awkward, to say the least.

"I think I saw him over there." Scarlet pointed, and Kent smiled in thanks, patting Christina's arm as he went off.

"Come on, I'm hungry." Giulia dragged them over to where Victor was handing out bread soaked in leftovers from the stew.

Back in her small group, Christina listened to the idle talk without much interest in it. She realized that the group she had been put into involved the quietest people in the cave besides Stanton. Wayde and Adrian could discuss a topic at length when given leave, but a short breakfast left little time to debate matters and Asher, Rebecca and Christina did not speak at all unless spoken to.

After breakfast, everyone was put to the task of trying to figure out a way out. It seemed ground that had been covered a dozen, a hundred times. Reilly, Orion and Christina alone seemed interested in the task since they had just arrived the day before. The walls were all identical and smooth. Christina learned that even the ceiling had been tried. After a long time, nothing new had been found and everyone felt discouraged as Victor prepared lunch.

"I think it's a dead end." Scarlet said baldly as they watched Malcolm and Reilly spar with each other. "There's nothing here."

"We just have to think about it logically." Giulia protested. "When you go into a room, where do you expect the door out to be? On the far end. The door here is on this wall" she gestured "so the door out logically will be over there."

"But it's not."

"But it probably is, if we just find it."

"Maybe it's the opposite, and it's right next to the door in." Rebecca suggested.

"Maybe it's not in this room at all." Rebecca suggested.

"Maybe it's on the floor." Christina mentioned, running her fingers over the smooth surface. The soft glow hurt her eyes, and she turned her gaze away.

"I don't think there's anything in here." Scarlet insisted.

"What was in here when you got here?" Christina asked.

"Just some boxes with better guns, and whole lot of light."

Christina scratched her nose and turned to watch D'Angelo punching the wall with his fists. D'Angelo had dark hair flecked with platinum blonde, which made his young face - he couldn't be more than twenty five - appear older somehow.

"He just had dark hair when he got here." Rebecca commented. "Something in the room picked up weird pigments in his hair and it's turning it lighter. It's like a suntan that glows in your hair."

Giulia nodded, then emitted a shriek and clawed at Rebecca's knee. "Becca! I know!"

"Yeah, it's sad." Rebecca said warily. "But, I mean, it's just hair -"

"No, I know what's in the room! And Scarlet was right, and so were you!"

"Let us hear it before you go to Max with some wildfire tale about D'Angelo's hair being the door." Scarlet raised her eyebrow.

"It's the light!" she said excitedly. "In the other room, the one we first came through, it's really dark, right? I'll bet the door to this room was easy to find because the light in here, we've been drinking it up for days, and if we go back out we'll glow!"

There was a silence, and then Rebecca said dryly "we'll glow?"

"Yes! And no one realized it because Reilly and Orion and Christina haven't been here long enough to they wouldn't glow when they came back through!"

"So what's the point?" Christina asked, looking from one to the other.

"The other door must be in the dark room." Scarlet muttered. "Well, it's worth a shot. Tell Max, Giulia."

And for the first time Giulia lost her excitement. "I think I'll tell Kent or Charlie." she said, and got up. "Someone...someone want to come with me?"

"I'll go." Christina stood. They went looking for a Captain.

"Max is more likely to dismiss it, I think." Giulia explained. "Plus he's so high up in command, I think I'd just rather tell one of the others."

"Max isn't that higher than any of the other Captains." Christina pointed out. "They all work together."

"Yeah, but when the rubber hits the road, it's Max who decides. There's Alpha, I'll tell him." she went over to the man, who was in a tank top mending a hole in his jacket with a thick needle and coarse thread, his thick arm muscles straining to keep his fingers going rhythmically up and down out of the fabric.

"What can I do for you?" Alpha asked, his eyes blazing. Christina decided that he couldn't control how bright his eyes were and he surely wasn't always acting as intense as he looked.

"I had a thought." Giulia said, and laid out her plan. Alpha listened stoically and when she had finished, laid aside his coat and stood up. "Miss Ryker, you've brought up a possibility that's been brushed against but never explored. I'll tell Max for you" and the corners of his mouth twitched, as if he understood that Giulia had specifically avoided the main Captain. He walked off, and Giulia turned to Christina, her eyes shining. "Oh, I hope I'm right." she breathed. "I'm going to tell Reilly and see what he thinks!" she called and ran off.

Christina watched her go, then turned to Alpha's jacket and picked it back up, sitting where he had and undoing the messy stitches that crisscrossed over the tear, redoing them neatly. It wasn't perfect but it was far less noticeable than his, and also had successfully closed the hole. As she lay it aside, Max's whistle echoed across the cave, and everyone got up and went towards him, where he stood with Alpha and Giulia.

"Miss Ryker has pointed out a new course." he announced. "The light in this room may have a florescent quality that we have not observed has ingrained itself into our skin. More importantly, she suggested that the way out is not in this room, but rather in the dark room that led into this one. I suggest we enter back into that room and attempt to find a new gateway there."

There was silence until Max took a step forward, and then the men began to talk amongst themselves, several of them going up to Giulia, who seemed a little taken aback at her sudden attention. Christina found Rebecca, who was smiling slightly. "Who knew." she said quietly. "I guess Giulia might be the one who gets us out of here after all."

They followed the crowd toward the entrance, now turned exit, and heard small exclamations of surprise and good amount of swearing. Though packed tightly into the room, it was clear that their bodies were giving off a certain amount of light that lit the darkness as brightly as any of the wall symbols.

"So" Orion said, coming up beside her "I've been through here more than the rest of you. Where the bloody hell is this hidden door?"

"Look for it, Guide." Kyle said, clapping him on the shoulder as he passed. The smoke from his cigar glowed faintly as it twisted in columns towards the low ceiling.

For the amount of time it had taken to figure out how to find the door, the actual location took only a few minutes. Malcolm and Adrian moved aside the step that Christina had sat on when she first came, and found a black iron ladder descending into the depths.

Max didn't waste an instant. "Gather your things and be ready in three! Meet back in this room when you're ready."

Christina went back into the white room, the light almost blinding her. She took her blanket and tucked it into her belt, then approached Malcolm. "Hey." she called, touching his shoulder lightly. "I wanted to thank you for giving me your blanket."

"No problem." he straightened from stashing throwing knives into his pack, pushing his mop of curly black hair away from his face. "Anything for the girls."

With this odd comment he walked off. Christina followed him back into the dark room, where she found Rebecca and stuck close with her as Max stood by the hole.

"We'll go down single file. Caster, Kent, Turner, Cameron, Rochester, Cage, Elliot, Ilium, you first. Miss Ryker, Miss Corentine, Miss Caine and Miss McCoy, you follow. The rest, after me."

Christina watched the illuminated men descend into the depths. She remembered one of her Guides saying something about usually going up to the next level - down seemed a bit unconventional. She wondered whether or not it was the right way to go.

When her turn came, she found that descending was remarkably easy. Though dark, the ladder gleamed faintly in her own dim light. Her fear - and that, she was sure, of Reilly and Orion - was that her light would fade faster than that of the others, but she seemed to be holding up similarly. When she reached the bottom, she looked closely at the others for the first time.

The light emanated faintly from their skin but seemed to have certain points where the beam grew stronger. Eyes, tips of fingers and the back of the neck had a definite increase of light, and when Christina moved to let the others come down, she saw that the loss of pigment in D'Angelo's hair from the white room had caused it to glow like a ceiling light. He kept running a hand ruefully through it as if trying to make it cease gleaming.

The strangest feature, however, was that the black clothing from level two seemed to have taken on level three properties. Lines of sheer fabric she had assumed were just for decoration now lit up like blue, pink and yellow neon lights, piercing the darkness and giving it the feel of a futuristic dystopia. They highlighted arm, legs, chests and neck lines. Christina looked at her own black clothes and saw the same as on everyone else.

"Is everyone here?" Adrian Caster called, and took a quick roll. The whole party was present and accounted for, and then every quieted down to hear what had to be done.

Someone swore loudly, breaking the silence. It was Reagan Quinn, the chains around his neck glinting in the light from his neck. "Bumped into something." he explained to Max. "Feels like a wall, about shoulder high."

Max pointed out three neon hand prints outlines on the wall directly beside the ladder - a large, a medium and a small. He, Reilly and Giulia stepped forward and placed their hands inside of them. Immediately a sound like electric blades slicing the air filled wherever they were. They all turned to look as long ribbons of light that matched the ones on their clothes pierced the darkness and snaked off, illuminating a series of passages. Reagan had been right. A wall, to his shoulder and the crown of Christina's head, was being lit with the lights. There were four entrances, each one outlined in blue, pink, yellow or white.

"A maze." voiced Wayde.

"Thank you, Cage, I think we all apprehended that." Beckham said vaguely, chewing on his cigar and turning to look at Max.

Max's brow furrowed, and he turned to the room at large. "Suggestions?" he asked.

There was silence, then Kent said quietly "Not splitting up."

He was immediately met with a wave of responses. Adrian shook his head and said "the way out could be through any one of those ways, and the walls aren't high. We can still communicate."

"But what if we get too far away?" Alpha retorted. "It's too easy to lose sight of each other."

"We all glow." Charlie pointed out. "We'll be able to shout and see each other."

"We're not the only thing that glows, Charlie." Kent responded. "Everything does. If half of us aren't down with migraines and dizziness in an hour you can have my gun. Seeing anyone who isn't right next to us will be almost impossible."

"We might not be able to find out way back if we take the wrong way." Charlie persisted. "Unless someone brought a trail of breadcrumbs?"

"Splitting up is not the answer." Kent said firmly. "We only have one doctor. We only have one Commander. Or what if something like those hand prints happen and we don't have all the right sizes because Giulia got sent with another group?"

"That's a risk we need to be willing to take." Adrian said. "If we split up there's a good chance at least some of us will make it out."

"And what about the rest of us?" Alpha asked dangerously. "We don't leave anyone behind."

"No one said anything about leaving people behind, Alpha, but it's dividing the force or failing bigger than we ever wanted to." Adrian glowered. "This isn't a game, it's life or death, and our chances of survival increase exponentially if we try all of the ways out, not just one."

"And if someone gets out? How do you tell the others? How do you let them know? We have no way of marking a trail back from an exit to find another group. Anything could be in there." Alpha looked intensely from one Captain to the other, lingering on Kent. "Anything. And none of us wants to look on while one of us is slaughtered and there's nothing we can do about it. We have to fight as a whole or there won't be a fight at all."

The arguments put forward, the Captains looked to Max, who was rubbing his upper lip with his forefinger. Christina glanced at Rebecca, who smiled slightly but whose eyes were dark. Christina didn't know what she preferred - surviving seemed possible both ways.

Max went over to the pink doorway and stuck his arm through, then inched his body into the maze. He pulled himself up to the top of the dark wall, using the ribbon of light as a gauge, and climbed into the blue zone.

"We can get over, then." D'Angelo stated the obvious.

Max came back through. "We split up into four groups." he said.

"Max -" began Kent, but Max held up his hand. "Peace, Kent." he said. "We can't risk losing time doing every path or leave it up to chance that we pick right the first time. There might not be food in there, or water. We can communicate with our voices well enough, and we can reach each other over the walls. If we get separated too far, then we'll discuss other options."

Alpha shook his head and Kent rubbed his forehead, but they didn't argue any further. The Captains then dropped their voices to discuss, no doubt, the splitting of the teams.

Christina's vision was already becoming blurry from all the lights. She sat down and Rebecca sat next to her. "I think this is a bad idea." she said.

Christina glanced at her. "What other option do we have?"

"What Kent said. Not splitting up. We've never had to split up before, I don't see why we should have to do it now."

"It's ok to be scared." Christina murmured. Rebecca ran a hand through her hair. "Not in this kind of situation it's not. Fear means we did something wrong. It means we're not as strong as we were. I've never had to be scared before. Not since the Beach."

Christina didn't know how to answer that, so she stared at the light coming from her fingertips and let her mind go blank.

"Attention." Max's voice cut through the air. He stood at ease with the Captains behind him. Christina felt as though they were all about to pick teams for capture the flag.

"The dividing of the teams will commence. Team leaders: Myself, Caster, Maximoff, Alpha and Kent."

Definitely capture the flag.

"With me: Miss McCoy, Shade, Ilium, Cameron, Beckham."

Kyle patted Stanton's shoulder to let him know to follow him, and they went to stand beside Max. They all cut impressive figured against the glow of the white door.

"With Castor: Miss Ryker, Damon, Turner, Derrik and Rochester. Of course" he said as the Guides passed him "don't hesitate to come back if someone shows up on the screens. Your team will wait for you."

They nodded, and Christina watched them stand beside Axel. She thought about being in the maze and then seeing someone appear all the way back on the Beach, leaving, going back up through the levels and then coming back down. What if the team had to move on due to some kind of attack before they got back? She shivered.

"With Alpha: Miss Caine, Valentino, Quinn and Pines."

Rebecca got up and went to stand with them, the smallest group. Christina saw where she had mended Alpha's jacket with the thread and wondered whether he had even noticed.

"With Kent and Maximoff: Miss Corentine, Elliot, O'Connell and Cage."

The fact that there were two Captains in her group made Christina feel somewhat less afraid, but she knew that it was most likely to make up for the others on her team - her, the new recruit, Asher, the one who wasn't a soldier, Malcolm, who was younger than most of the other men though older than Reilly. Cage was the only real military man that they had in the group besides the Captains.

They were by the yellow gate. Christina looked over to Rebecca, Giulia and Scarlet, each standing in their respective groups. Max had probably split up the girls for the very concerns that Kent had voiced: a sort of code where they might need a woman to pass. But despite Max's rules, she was concerned being alone with five men.

"We go slowly, and we keep in touch with other teams." Max ordered. "Any concerns go directly to your Captain. They will relay them to another team. If attacked, fight to kill. We don't leave a man - or woman- behind. Stay with your team and don't be a dead weight. Move out." he passed through the white gate into the maze.