Escape Room Read online

  “Back in business,” Chance said.

  SEVEN

  The trap door in the floor quickly drew a crowd. It had been marvelously hidden, flush with the ground, cloaked nearly to invisibility within the floorboards. Kate laid the door flat, revealing an opening that was perhaps four feet deep. The opening was covered with a metal grate, the type of screen used over air conditioning vents. She tried to pull it off, but it was welded shut. She leaned forward and peered down through the angled slats.

  Something glinted.

  “There’s a key down there,” she said. She wriggled her fingers through the gaps in the slats, but her hand was too big. She could only insert her fingers up to her knuckles.

  “Who’s got the smallest hands?” she asked.

  After a moment of awkward glances at each other’s hands, Jenny stepped forward. “I guess that’s me.” She knelt beside the gap and writhed her fingers through. But even Jenny’s slender wrists could not pass through the grate.

  “We need to make something to drop down there,” Chance said. “A piece of string. And a hook of some kind.”

  “Or a magnet,” added Tahoe.

  It was harder than they expected. There was no obvious piece of rope or string in the room, nor was there anything resembling a hook. They couldn’t find so much as a paperclip. Did they even have paperclips in Darwin’s time? Wolfie found a cloth bookmark in one of the books, but it was far too short. He looked again in the cabinet set into the bookcase, as if something may have magically appeared inside. Frustrated, he shut the door with enough force to draw a sharp look from Tahoe.

  “Sorry,” Wolfie said. “Didn’t mean to slam it like that.”

  But something about the cabinet had drawn Kate’s attention. She walked over and knelt beside the cabinet door. She opened it with a short pull, closed it, then opened it again. Using her fingers, she fiddled with the outside edge of the cabinet door and pried something loose. Holding it with her thumb and forefinger, Kate displayed it for Wolfie. It was a small black rectangle, less than an inch long. Wolfie recognized it immediately.

  “A magnet,” he said. “Of course. Now we just need something to tie it to.”

  “The plant,” Tahoe said suddenly. She had been reading through the papers on Darwin’s desk, but now darted to the bookshelf, pointing to the artificial ivy plant. She snapped off two plastic stems and quickly tied them together into a four-foot cord.

  Tahoe handed the makeshift rope to Kate. “You found the magnet, you get the honors,” she said.

  Kate quickly fastened the end of the ivy stem around the magnet.

  Wielding it like a fishing line, Kate dropped the magnet down through the grate, careful to feed the ivy down slowly. The magnet reached the bottom of the space, but six inches from the silver key. She pulled it back out, and dropped it again through a different slat. This time it dropped to within an inch of the key. With a quick flick of her wrist, the magnet jerked and connected to the key with a click.

  “Got it,” she said, exhaling.

  “Careful,” warned Chance. “Not too fast.”

  Kate pulled the key from the grate, and yanked it from the magnet.

  “Ta-da!” she said gleefully.

  Chance grinned. He knew that this was just a game, but he still felt an undeniable thrill. And judging by the animated expressions on their faces, the others were feeling it too.

  “Twenty-eight minutes left,” Wolfie said.

  “Try the drawer,” Tahoe said in a rush.

  She grabbed the key and dashed over to Darwin’s oak desk. The key slid in and turned easily. Tahoe pulled open the drawer. From inside, she withdrew a single item, a piece of paper rolled around a cylinder and fastened with a rubber band. She quickly rolled off the rubber band and pulled the paper out. She handed the cylinder to Chance.

  It was a flashlight. He held it up for the others to see.

  “What does the paper say?” he asked.

  She read aloud. “What has many tongues, but never speaks?”

  “A riddle,” Kate said. “I’m good at riddles.”

  Tahoe handed over the paper. “In that case,” she said, “it’s all yours.”

  “What does this have to do with a flashlight?” Chance asked. He inspected it, searching for another clue. It was black, with a loop of cloth at the end and a recessed on-off switch. He flipped it on, shone the beam against his hand. It cast his palm in a strange blue haze, but it was otherwise just a standard flashlight.

  “A snake?” suggested Wolfie. “Snakes have tongues but never speak.”

  “Maybe,” said Kate, nodding. “But a snake doesn’t have ‘many tongues.’”

  “A hydra?” he countered. “A many-headed serpent, many tongues.”

  “That seems like a stretch,” Tahoe said. “A fire-breathing dragon doesn’t have much to do with Darwin.”

  Kate muttered something under her breath. She looked up, nodding, and started walking across the room.

  “What?” Chance asked, following her. “What is it?”

  “It’s fire,” Kate said. “What has many tongues but never speaks?’ The answer is fire. It must have something to do with the fireplace.”

  The others followed her over to the fireplace and started poking around. Tahoe fingered the figurines. Like the turtle, these sculptures were all just a few inches tall, set into a base. One depicted a porcupine, its quills bronzed and smooth, so unlike the real thing. The other figurine was of an octopus, its bulbous eyes as round and smooth as marbles. Jenny removed the photographs from the picture frames but found nothing. Wolfie inspected the hearth. The back of the fireplace had been stained black. He ran a finger through it, but the fake soot didn’t rub away. No concealed messages there. He peered up into the hood.

  “Hand me that flashlight,” he said. Chance quickly handed it over. Wolfie flipped it on and trained it up into the darkness.

  “See anything?” Chance asked.

  “This isn’t a regular flashlight,” said Wolfie. “It’s a black light.”

  That’s what was strange about it, Chance realized. A black light doesn’t shine like a regular flashlight. In fact, black light casts almost no visible light. Rather, it emits a form of ultraviolet light that reveals fluorescence. Fluorescent inks were used in passports. TSA agents scan them with tiny blacklight pens as you pass through security at the airport.

  “It doesn’t matter what it is,” Tahoe said. “It only matters if you can see anything.”

  “Yeah, I can see something. There’s writing in here, some kind of blue writing that I can see only with this black light.”

  “Well, what does it say?”

  “It says, ‘Voyage of the Beagle,’” Wolfie read.

  Chance said immediately, “Darwin’s first book.”

  “The bookshelf,” Tahoe said. “It must be somewhere on the bookshelf.” She hurried across the room, Jenny and Kate right behind her.

  Chance helped Wolfie back to his feet. “Nice work, Wolfie,” he said. “Let’s go find that book.”

  Wolfie hesitated. “There’s something else written up there,” he said. “I’m not sure —”

  “Found it!” It was Kate, shouting more loudly than necessary. She held a cloth-bound book triumphantly over her head.

  “Come on, Wolfie,” Chance said. “We can come back to the fireplace later.”

  Wolfie shrugged, and slipped the flashlight into his front jeans pocket. All five of them huddled around Kate as she opened Darwin’s book.

  “Look at that,” whispered Tahoe.

  The pages inside the book had been carved out in a neat hollow square. The cavity was perhaps six inches high and wide, and about three inches deep — just large enough to conceal another figurine. From the recess, Kate pulled out the bronze sculpture. It was a bat, wings outstretched. Kate ran a fingertip across its skeletal wings. “Gross,” she said.

  “Such a girl,” Tahoe chided. “It’s made of metal, just like the turtle. And the two others on th
e mantel.” They all glanced back toward the fireplace. “Look, they are clearly a series.”

  She was right. All four figurines — the turtle, the bat, the octopus and the porcupine — were roughly the same size, cast in bronze and set into slightly wider pedestal bases. Tahoe lined them up in a row upon the mantel.

  There was no writing on any of the figurines. Kate fiddled with the base of the porcupine. Nothing, no hidden compartment.

  “Now what?” Wolfie asked. Jenny and Kate slumped down into the wingback chairs. Tahoe perched herself on the curled arm of the leather sofa.

  “How much time do we have left?” she asked.

  Chance looked at his watch. “Twelve minutes,” he said.

  “Should we ask for a hint?” Wolfie suggested. “Ask the Game Master?”

  “That feels like giving up,” Tahoe said.

  “Like we need somebody else’s help,” added Kate.

  “We do need help!” Wolfie protested. “We hit a dead end on our own.”

  “Still,” said Kate.

  “Game master, SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST!” Jenny called out, her head tilted toward the ceiling microphone. The special words would soon bring forth a magical hint from the voice of God. Well, not God…but Leo, the game master.

  “Jenny, what the heck?” Tahoe glared.

  “What?” Jenny said. “We need help. Eleven minutes left.”

  They paused for a moment, ears perked. But there was no voice.

  “SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST,” Jenny said again, more loudly than before.

  Again, nothing.

  “Leo, man, you had one job,” Wolfie said. Everyone laughed except Jenny, who looked away, a distant look on her face. She was taking this very seriously, Chance thought.

  A loud crackle of static filled the room. Beneath the noise, a man’s voice emerged, barely audible through the buzz of the speaker system. Chance thought he could just make out the word “submerge.” The static cut off abruptly and the room returned to silence.

  “What did he say?” Tahoe asked. “‘Diverge?’”

  “I thought it was ‘surge,’” said Wolfie.

  “Great hint, Game Master!” Tahoe shouted sarcastically. “Real big help.”

  Jenny stared at her hands.

  “It’s okay, Jenny,” Chance said, noticing her concern. “It was a good idea to ask for the hint, but clearly the AV system isn’t working. We’ll figure it out. And even if we don’t, we’ll be out of here in, uh, nine minutes.” Jenny didn’t look reassured. Her face was pinched in concentration. “Jenny? You okay?”

  “It’s the bases of the figurines,” she said suddenly. “They are all different shapes.”

  Wolfie was the first to rise and confirm what Jenny was saying. “She’s right,” he said. “Look. Circle, triangle, square, some kind of pentagon. All different.”

  Jenny continued, “There must be some kind of order to them, somewhere to place them. Look on the mantel, that’s the most logical place.”

  Wolfie slid his right hand over the top of the fireboard. Suddenly, his eyes widened. “Holy crap,” he said. “She’s right. There’s something here.”

  He showed them. Set into the top of the mantel was a series of barely perceptible indentations, each in a different shape. A circle, a square, a triangle, a pentagon. Each indentation matched the base of a figurine. Wolfie quickly placed the figurines into the corresponding depressions.

  A sharp pop, followed by a slow creak, drew their attention across the room. As the watched, mouths agape, the ladder on the bookcase started to slide on its own.

  “Sorcery,” whispered Tahoe in her best witch’s cackle.

  The ladder glided across the entire width of the bookcase, then stopped. Something clicked, and a panel of the bookshelf — the panel previously covered by the ladder — popped open.

  “I knew there was something hidden there!” Wolfie said.

  They all stormed toward the hidden panel.

  “How much time left?” Kate asked.

  “Three minutes,” answered Chance.

  The secret door was perhaps four feet tall; Wolfie had to stoop to enter. The others followed, hunched to fit through the doorway. It was a tight squeeze, but the space beyond was just large enough to accommodate all five of them.

  Suddenly, Kate screamed, and clamped a hand across her mouth.

  A skeleton sat slumped on the floor in the corner of the room.

  It was propped up in a seated position. The hollowed eye sockets in the skull glared at them, unseeing. A piece of paper was crumpled in the bones of the skeleton’s outstretched left hand. Wolfie snatched it quickly, as if the corpse might reawaken at any moment.

  “My dearest Charles,” he read aloud.

  I have heard through mutual acquaintances of the pending publication of your manuscript entitled “On the Origin of Species.” Imagine my surprise when I further learned that its contents — your theory of survival of the fittest, as it were — closely mirrors my own thoughts and ideas. They are the very same conjectures, you will no doubt remember, that I sent you nearly 15 months ago. I cannot help but believe that somehow your dash to publish now is a pathetic attempt to filch my own pioneering theories, to pawn them off as your own, and to bask in the glory of a wondrous new scientific field.

  The only other option is that we have both landed upon the same theories completely independent of one another. I am sure you would agree, that that is utterly preposterous.

  So you leave me with no choice. I will arrive in London in two days’ time, and will be presenting my own original theories to the esteemed members of the Royal Academy. I will of course make it clear that any publication of similar theories must surely be considered little more than devious plagiarism and nothing short of scientific theft of the most dishonorable kind.

  I trust you will now take the appropriate steps to recall your own manuscript, to avoid embarrassment for you, your character, and the reputation of your entire family.

  I will be coming to Down House to deliver this letter to you personally, because I very much want to see your face when you read it. I have always been fascinated by the true expression of villainy.

  Sincerely,

  AW

  “Whoa, heavy stuff,” said Wolfie when he had finished reading.

  “Did Darwin really steal this guy’s ideas?” Kate asked.

  “Is this skeleton … is this supposed to be Charles Darwin?” Tahoe asked.

  Chance knelt beside the body. He pointed to the left hand. “It’s not Darwin,” he said. “It’s Alfred Russel Wallace. He’s wearing a ring with the initials AW on it.”

  “So that’s it,” Tahoe said. “We solved it. Darwin has gone into hiding after killing Alfred Russel Wallace, after Wallace threatened to go public about a stolen theory of evolution.”

  “Great, but how does that get us out of this room?” Wolfie asked. “We still need a key.”

  “You mean that key?” said Jenny, pointing to the skeleton.

  They turned in unison back to the corpse. There, fastened on a thin silver chain around the skeleton’s neck, was a slender metal key, notched at the end. Chance snatched it off with a quick tug.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  With perhaps a minute to spare, the group of five reveled in their victory. Laughter and congratulations filled the room. They slapped one another on the back. Jenny even hugged Chance, surprising him. He found himself just a little disappointed when she turned and gave the same hug to each of the others.

  Suddenly, Chance wondered if he would ever see these people again. They had been brought together for just this event. A fluke, really. A chance meeting. In a few minutes, they would say their goodbyes and go their separate ways.

  He stopped in front of the door. “Hey, guys,” he said. “I feel like I should say something here.”

  “Here we go,” Tahoe said. “Time for a speech.”

  “I’ll keep it short. I just wanted to say that I really appreci
ated getting to meet you all today. When I got my golden ticket, I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t even going to come today. But now, I’m glad I did. So thank you, all of you. It was really nice to meet you.”

  “Aww, Chance, you’re going to make me cry now,” mocked Tahoe with a smile.

  “Ditto, Chance,” said Wolfie. “Now let’s get the funk out of here.”

  Chance handled the honors. He slid the key into the keyhole to another round of cheers. The door opened easily and they all poured out of the room in a rush of cheers and more laughter.

  That’s when they saw the blood.

  Part Two

  FCC Passes “internet freedom” rules that repeal net neutrality

  By Marc Goldman @MarcGoldmanCNN

  (November 26, 2019: 11:41 PM ET) – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today approved a new set of rules that will clear the way for internet service companies (ISPs) to charge users more to see certain content and to curb access to some websites.

  Previous regulations enacted by the Obama administration prohibited ISPs from stopping or slowing the delivery of websites, and prevented the companies from charging fees for high-quality streaming. The new rules are considered a boon for telecom giants like AT&T and Verizon, who have long said that previous rules prevented them from offering customers a wider selection of services and lower price points.

  “These new rules mean that the federal government will stop micromanaging the internet,” said FCC Chairwoman Beatrice Shaw during a press conference. “It will replace lumbering government intervention with private investment and innovation.”

  The deregulation paves the way for ISPs to offer tiers of pricing and access, similar to how cable companies operate. A basic tier may provide web access to 20 sites, with higher-priced tiers for access to more sites.

  Google and Facebook were vocal critics of deregulation. They joined a coalition of content developers in opposing the new rules. The Free Internet Association believes the new rules will hurt small businesses because they will not be able to afford larger ISP-imposed fees for basic tier access. “We are disappointed that the new FCC rules fail to maintain strong net neutrality protections that will ensure the internet remains open for everyone,” FIA said in a statement.