Chương 54: Book Two - Chapter 4: You Guys Suck Shit

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"Let's get a few rule changes and additions out of the way first." Plaxx hopped off the washer, and the spotlight followed him to the floor.

"Number one." The words materialized above his head in bright orange text. Rule One: Escape the Boargore King's Basement Before the Timer Ends"You must escape before the timer runs out. Once it hits zero, everything in the basement will be incinerated. Instantly. Also, you'll be added to the Recycled pile to be used in other Runs of the Grindhouse." Zone One also had a timer, but other than losing the game, he hadn't mentioned any other consequences for it expiring.

I wondered why incineration was necessary when losing the game meant Maltheris won the planet. It wasn't worth asking because I knew Plaxx would never answer truthfully. Also, I really hated this little shit and couldn't wait for him to poof out of here.

"Additionally—""Hang on," Tre interrupted." What?" Plaxx asked through gritted teeth.

"Why are we getting burned to death and then recycled?" Tre asked.

"What's the point?"

"Pain. Punishment. Those are the points."

"Whatever you say, Plaxx." Tre gave the nickname extra oomph. The imp swallowed hard like he was about to say something and decided against it. He cleared his throat.

"Rule two. Some of the rooms have timers of their own." Rule Two: Some Rooms Have Timers"These timed rooms override the zone timer," Plaxx explained.

"If you fail to solve a puzzle or escape a room before the time limit, you will fail the zone and be incinerated." Tre drew his head back into his shoulders, eyebrows pulling together and creasing his forehead.

"Traps? Puzzles? I knew this was a Saw rip-off." I laughed on purpose. Tre joined me. Plaxx held Tre and me in his stare, yellow eyes boring into us, until our laughter died.

"Rule three. This is where the Grindhouse gets really fun! Honestly, the best part of the game, in my opinion." Rule Three: Player Choice & Navigation"Zone Two is where we introduce player choices. No more handholding from the delectably malevolent Maltheris the Agronomist. Now YOU get to decide your own build. For Zone Two and beyond, each new Achievement will unlock two potential skills. FUN!" I get to pick? There had to be a catch.

Maltheris hadn't given me a single thing in Zone One that didn't come with a fine-print clause I only discovered when it was already too late. Plaxx held up a finger.

"But you can only pick one of the two, and on very… limited information. It's one part strategy and two parts random luck. Don't cock it up!"

"Very limited information" was the catch. But even if the choices were half blind, they were mine to make; the ability to choose what I'd become felt like…something just shy of a real win. I didn't trust that feeling. Plaxx steepled his fingers.

"And, not that you fuckheads deserve it, a map has been added to your LifeLine." The LifeLine vibrated in my jacket, startling me; I'd almost forgotten I had it. A map icon appeared on its dark red, pulsating home screen, opening to a view of a large, rectangular space filled with swirling mist. At the bottom of the screen, some of the mist had been removed, revealing the room we currently stood in, the bathroom/safe area we'd just left, and a hallway beyond the door at the room's far end.

It was a thumbnail of clarity surrounded by gray nothing. Pinching to zoom out or in did nothing. There could be five rooms in that mist or fifty; it was impossible to tell.

"As you explore, the fog will lift, widening the view to reveal a glimpse of what's to come," Plaxx said. I didn't like the elated look in his eyes as he delivered that last bit of information.

"Rule four!" Plaxx swept his arm over his head in a grand arc. The text for Rule Four appeared like a rainbow above him. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Rule Four: Hidden Caches"Another unearned benefit to your party is the supply caches hidden somewhere in the basement. Should you find them, they contain basic aid, potential weapon upgrades, and resources that may be useful for surviving the zone.

"Keep in mind, supplies are limited," Plaxx added, wagging his finger at us. Liam raised his hand. Plaxx's pointed tail snapped out, leveling straight at Liam.

"Yeah, you. New guy."

"If the caches are hidden, how do we find them?" Liam asked tentatively.

"By looking for them." Plaxx turned to me, putting a hand on the side of his mouth.

"Not the brains of the group, clearly."

"You're a dick," I said. The imp ignored me.

"And finally, rule five. This is probably the most important rule, so listen up." Rule Five: Exiting the Basement"The loading dock at the end of the basement is your exit. Reaching it, however, requires a certain... dénouement. To escape, you'll—" Tre raised an eyebrow.

"You learned French?"

"I know French," Plaxx gleefully shared.

"We can access the minds of eight billion humans. I can speak all kinds of languages."

"Stolen languages," Tre muttered with a smirk. Plaxx was across the room in a flash, driven by his tiny wings, fluttering so fast they were barely visible. He pounced on Tre, eyes bulging as his lip curled into a snarl." Don't interrupt me again!" I charged at Plaxx, ready to tear those wings right off his back. The imp snapped his fingers. My weight was still going forward, but my body wasn't, and I hung at an angle I couldn't have held on purpose for longer than a few seconds.

"And you …" Plaxx spun to me.

"Won't be getting any more cheap shots." Two steps, and then he was in my frozen face. His eyes were level with mine, rancid breath suffocating. I couldn't move. Couldn't even blink. He took his time, considering me. Then he slapped me across the face. Hard. My eyes watered. Plaxx snapped his fingers and motion resumed. I pitched forward and crashed into Tre as he struggled to stand. The imp was already back on the washer, jaw clenched tighter than my black skinny jeans from 2013.

"You fuckers really know how to ruin a good mood." I rolled off Tre, ending up flat on my back on the disgusting bathroom floor.

"What the hell, dude?" Tre sat up, rubbing the back of his head. His stubby doll fingers had to push through thick synthetic curls to get there.

"Ugh!" Plaxx pinched the bridge of his pointy nose." Anyway. To escape you'll…" He trailed off. Stared at us.

"You know what? Figure it the fuck out! You guys suck shit." Poof. Then he was gone, leaving behind the stink of a fresh fart.

"Maybe I needed to kick his ass harder?" Tre patted my leg.

"It was a good ass-kicking, Nora."

"Didn't do much to deter him from being an asshole." I hopped back to my feet.

"Zone Two sounds great, huh, guys?" Liam, still standing at the sink, shook his head.

"You didn't let him finish. Now we don't know what we have to do to get out."

"I…" The words died in my throat. Isabel had turned toward the red door and was checking the Maytag Flail's grip, adjusting it.

"We know enough, Liam," Tre said, waving the worry away.

"We gotta survive the torture porn, get to the exit, and fuck off outta this zone." Liam's height and bulk made him intimidating as hell up close. He closed the space between us, eyes on Tre.

"Plaxx said something about how to escape, and then she cut him off."

"Hey, relax," Tre said.

"Nora's LifeLine updates all the objectives once we enter the Zone. There wasn't anything he said before the first zone that wasn't also in the journal app." Every word was true until the last sentence. Plaxx was the one who told us the Grindhouse was full of real people with bugs in their brains, not the journal app.

"Liam's right. We learned a lot from Plaxx we wouldn't have known otherwise." Isabel's eyes moved between Tre and me.

"Some stuff, but I meant—""Doesn't matter," I said, cutting Tre off. Then I turned to Liam and met his eyes.

"Sorry I didn't let Plaxx finish."

"It's chill." Our newest party member sighed, his shoulders dropping half an inch.

"He's a little asshole; I totally get wanting to bully him. Sorry, I got heated." Liam's understanding released tension I didn't realize had collected in my neck. My eyes cut toward Isabel. She did not look nearly as satisfied. A loud hydraulic hiss saved me from having to apologize to her right then. The faded red door swung open, revealing the inky blackness of an unlit room beyond. A hot wave of machine oil and scorched metal flooded my nose, carrying with it an undercurrent of horse shit.

I squinted into the darkness, hoping my eyes would adjust.

"Make sure you have two Salves each," Tre said, pointing to the extras by the door. Healing Salves disappeared into inventories. Isabel was still looking at me. I went into the room first. Tre followed, with Isabel behind him. Liam was the last to enter. The bathroom door closed. The dark here was a velvet curtain pressed directly against my open eyes. We stood on polished concrete cold enough to bite through my boots. At least Isabel can't stare into my lying soul.

Blue light hit us, cast by a large, flat screen on the wall to my left. Another screen on my right blinked to life. A final one, larger than the others, lit up in front of us. All three were mounted about twelve feet high. The screens changed to color test bars, emitting an ear-piercing beep. Isabel, Liam, and I clasped our hands over our ears, wincing. The long beeeeep continued for another few seconds.

Tre looked up at us, scratching his head, saying something I couldn't hear, then pointed to his molded ears and shook his head. He gave me a thumbs up. The tone abruptly stopped, and all three TVs changed to solid white. The brightness gave me my first real glimpse of the space. It was a large, square room roughly forty feet wide, with steel walls, oxidized to near-black, streaked with vertical grease stains soaked so deep they almost became part of the metal.

The white light bounced off the grease spots, making the walls look moist. Nobody's basement looked like this.

"I was saying, even though I can hear, I think my molded ears protected me from the noise," Tre explained.

"So, you hear but don't hear?" Isabel asked. Tre wrapped a synthetic curl around one of his fingers, a familiar behavior when he was working out a problem.

"As crazy as that seems… yes. The sound that made you all clench up didn't affect me." My focus was on the far end of the room where a large, corrugated metal garage door sat flush with the wall, the words START HERE sprayed across it in dripping red paint.

"Subtle." Isabel tightened her grip on the Maytag Flail, taking a step toward the door. Liam approached the painted letters cautiously.

"Is there a button or something?" A heavy, metallic clunk, clunk, clunk sounded from the other side of the wall. Here we go again. Raising the Shitty Shield, I squared my shoulders, bracing for the metal to roll up and reveal some new abysmal situation or creature to overcome. The lights dimmed as a figure stepped on screen.