Gauntlet: Chapter 3

Clio didn’t know how much time had passed. Like a worshipper, she’d stripped off her jacket to lay supine beneath the sun, allowing herself to indulge in the heat on her limbs and face.

Surely, if anyone was coming after her, they would have already caught up. Black Jack must have kept her secret. She mulled that–and his almost playful words–over for a moment before deliberating on the prowlers who had confined her in the first place.

Maybe they didn’t even know she was gone yet. Judging by the placement of the sun, she guessed it was one o’clock in the afternoon. Perhaps all the prowlers were fast asleep. She didn’t have much faith in the ‘rules’ now, but she still hoped the prowlers would stick to form and stay below.

She needed to figure out exactly where she was, and if she would be able to find her way back to Britt. She assumed she was on the ground floor, which was too close to prowler territory for comfort. And just how far below ground did the Gauntlet extend? Her climb seemed to indicate several levels.

The Gauntlet was far from the single building she’d first thought it to be. It had to be enormous, hidden in plain sight in the midst of a metropolis. It still mystified her. How much did she miss in everyday life because she wasn’t looking closely enough?

The thought made her search the courtyard again, but her exploration revealed nothing but weeds growing thickly in the broken surface of the concrete yard, and a window on each austere wall. It was a crossroads of sorts; she took a closer look, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sky. It looked like this was the intersection of four different wings or structures. She had no idea which way to go.

The way she’d come was her last choice. She wanted distance from them. On the other hand, she didn’t want to end up farther away from Britt. She growled in frustration.

“Just pick one and commit,” Clio said out loud. “That’s what Britt would do.” Anyway, she could retrace her steps if necessary.

She took another turn around the courtyard, peering through the open holes of the arched windows. The rooms they revealed were similar–empty and dusty from exposure to the elements, and seeming to breathe out dank air. Moisture rings discolored the floor and walls, and identical doors provided the only possible exits.

“Trust my luck?” Clio gave a short laugh. “I could flip a coin if I had one.”

She climbed up onto the nearest window ledge and jumped into the room.  A closer inspection revealed nothing useful, so she tried the door. She was almost surprised that it was unlocked. It opened smoothly onto a shockingly clean, modern-looking service corridor that stretched a hundred yards before being ending in another door.

The lights were on. A wave of cooler air from the hallway raised goosebumps on her arms. Clio waited and watched, but nothing happened. She finally shut the door.

She went back out to the courtyard and into each of the other rooms, but ended up with the same results. She eventually returned to the room she’d first emerged from and picked up the grate she’d left lying on the wall, belatedly following Britt’s advice to cover her tracks.

When she settled it back into place, she noticed a faint, ridged footprint left in the grit underneath it. It couldn’t have come from her flat sandal. She bent and looked at the strange footprint as her heart began to pound.

It could have been Britt’s. The size was right, and it had to be fairly fresh or the wind would have disturbed it.

Or it could’ve been planted to look like Britt’s, a sly voice in her head suggested.

You’re a fool to trust her, Red Jack’s voice added.

Clio frowned. She turned and looked carefully around the room.

There. Another partial mark had left waves in the dirt beneath the window that faced the room. Clio knelt closer, but she found no other evidence that someone had been there.

“If Britt was here, she would’ve left some sign,” she said slowly to herself.

Clio brightened, but a thorough inspection of the doorframe revealed no secret mark in purple. It was possible that Britt hadn’t had time to follow her standard procedure, or she’d simply been too agitated to think of it.

If it wasn’t Britt who had passed through, then should she try this route? She deliberated on the question, and grudgingly realized that if someone was trying to manipulate her–herd her in a certain direction–then ultimately she might not have a choice. Going a different way might only prolong the game, or she might run into something unplanned and unpleasant.

“You want me to go this way?” she asked aloud. “Fine, then.” If they expected her to run away and hide, she’d show them not to underestimate her. She hoped she wasn’t that naïve any longer.

Britt would probably disagree. One corner of her mouth twisted up, and Clio squared her shoulders.

She missed the weight of her backpack; it had held at least a bottle of water and a small portion of food. On cue with that thought, her stomach growled. She tallied another grudge to hold against the jerks behind the scenes.

She opened the door, and the chilled air made her shiver again. Reluctantly, she pulled on her jacket. She couldn’t afford to lose anything else, and it gave her a bit of comfort, honestly. Regardless of his part in tricking her into this, Black Jack had helped her get away from that basement. She wanted to believe he was sincere…but she acknowledged this could be just another trick. She couldn’t be sure of anything.

Clio pushed her hands into her pockets. Her eyes widened when her right hand curled around something.

She withdrew a plastic card.

“Black Jack…” Clio whispered.

It was white, with a black magnetic stripe that ran the length of it. Something that looked like a serial number was printed on the other side.

JS19IE03. A key card?

Her lips pursed as she turned it over in her fingers; she eyed the door at the end of the hallway. The narrow hallway was the brightest and cleanest she’d seen inside the Gauntlet, certainly without the usual air of abandonment. It was a jarring change, as if she had moved abruptly from one stage setting to another with wildly different scenery.

Her sandals slapped on the polished floor, taking her to the solitary door at the end of the hall. Its silver handle gleamed; when it turned smoothly under her hand, she released the breath she’d held in a soft laugh. The heavy scrape of metal hinges echoed as she stepped into a foyer.

The walls were painted in a pleasing, warm, butter yellow hue, and the floor was springy with a plush carpet. Low, comfortable-looking chairs and sofas were arranged against the walls. It looked like an extremely cozy waiting room–something a therapist’s office might have, designed to put the nervous patient at ease.

Clio supposed she should be nervous, and she was. But after the minimal amenities of the Gauntlet so far, the pretty room made her a bit giddy.

She sat in one of the fat armchairs and bounced a little. Oh, yes, it was as comfortable as it looked. Clio let herself sink back into the cushions with a soft moan.

She chuckled. How pathetic was it when sitting in a chair–albeit a fantastic one–became a near orgasmic experience? Her curiosity soon drew her from its comforts, and Clio leaned forward to examine the books on a low table in front of her.

The first was a huge coffee table book full of gorgeous photographs. At first glance, the pictures were of natural or architectural landscapes that looked perfectly ordinary. But upon closer inspection, they revealed surreal elements, such as a house too impossibly proportioned to exist. In one image, a waterfall flowed uphill. In another, a pristine fountain sparkled with cyan water in the midst of a barren wasteland.

Within the second book, Flora and Fauna, she did find plants and animals in abundance, only the animals were the human kind. Clio flushed in surprise. The nature shots showed men and women naked and reclining on tree trunks, grassy lawns, and in the midst of flower gardens. They were erotic, but not overly sexual.

That didn’t stop her from hastily setting the book aside. Without thinking, she folded her hands primly on her lap and waited. After a moment, she realized the absurdity of the situation and laughed at herself.

Clio was almost surprised that a receptionist didn’t eventually appear to greet her. She got up and made her way to a short hallway that led to an imposing mahogany door. Feeling a little ridiculous, Clio knocked.

Of course no one answered. She pushed open the door and entered another elegant but lightly furnished room with sedate lighting and neutral, calming colors.  It contained a long reclining chair, a simpler chair with a straight back, and a small table and lamp between them. It looked exactly like her idea of a psychotherapist’s office. The air seemed heavier here–almost hushed.

She was drawn to the striking artwork on the walls. The first one she recognized as a print, though she couldn’t remember the painter’s name. She read the nameplate: The Treachery of Images. René Magritte.

The picture was an old-fashioned smoking pipe painted on a yellow background, with a sentence in French beneath it: Ceci n’est pas une pipe. Her rusty high school French was good enough to translate the simple sentence, but shockingly, someone had neatly scripted the translation in ballpoint pen beneath it.

This is not a pipe.

On impulse, she touched the blue ink, dragging a fingertip across the words. The writing smeared easily, and her heart sped up. It was fresh.

She tried to calm down as she rubbed at the blue stain on her finger. Someone had just been here. Very, very recently.

Her eyes rose back to the wall. Beside the pipe painting was a framed pamphlet, titled The Cave of Trophonius. A picture of a woodcut depicted a man descending into the black mouth of a cave. Another showed his exit: his mouth open, a look of ecstasy on his face, a group of men listening at his feet.

Clio read aloud, “Those who wished to consult the oracle were required to fast and sacrifice and descend into the cave. Most were so frightened that they forgot all they experienced in the depths. Each one was taken and placed on the oracular seat, where the priests of the cave would record his utterances and thereby reveal the oracular message within.”

Oracular message? Clio’s confusion grew. What did any of this have to do with the Gauntlet?

The last artwork was a framed triptych of photographs of frescoes, taken at the ruins of an ancient Roman villa. The scenes seemed to depict a variety of religious rites. The piece was titled Villa of the Mysteries.

Clio was intrigued. She turned away from the wall and examined the room more carefully. Her eyes caught on a pad lying face down on the table.

A pen was tucked into the spiral loop at the top. Clio picked up the pad and turned it over. A single sentence was written in the same neat, blue script that marred the painting: There is no meaning to be found in the world but what meaning we give it.

She raised an eyebrow. She glanced at the reclining chair, halfway tempted to see what would happen if she lay down and closed her eyes. She clicked the pen a few times and smiled wryly. She wasn’t interesting enough for psychoanalysis at this point. But by the time they finished with her, she might very well be.

The smile slid off her face. She pocketed the pad and pen.

Another door opened onto a long hallway that looked like a wing of a medical facility. Clio sighed. A short corridor with a series of doors offered her a number of choices.

She shrugged and started with the first. It was labeled Administration and adorned with a key card reader.

She took the card out of her pocket, then held her breath as she slid it through. The device rewarded her with a beep and a click. She pulled the door open.

“Thank you, Jack.”

The room beyond was a personal office, with a standard desk and metal filing cabinets. She immediately went to the desk. A daily calendar sat on the corner, turned to the current date as far as Clio could guess. The daily quote was from Benjamin Franklin.

“Games lubricate the body and the mind.”

“What does he know?” was Clio’s sardonic response. But it was the hand-scrawled quote beneath it, in the now familiar blue script, that made her laugh.

“Your focus determines your reality.” –Qui-Gon Jinn

Whoever this recent tagger was, she liked them. At least they had a cute sense of humor.

Her eyes traveled across the desk until she stopped abruptly. There was a file folder labeled with her name on the tab.

She gasped and picked it up. Her stomach plummeted when she saw pages inside that outlined her life and interests. It included chilling details, down to the brand of toothpaste she preferred.

A series of photographs were clipped to the back flap, mostly focusing on her brief time in the city. Several had been taken of her where she worked, where she ate, the parks and squares she liked to visit, even the lobby of her apartment building. Most disturbing was the photo of her the day she’d left for the city. She remembered that day well–smiling excitedly, teary, and waving goodbye to her friends and family.

They had known her even then. They had chosen her even then. This wasn’t some awful, random mistake.

If this was all…deliberate…then what? Why did they want her?

A sudden, sharp pain lanced through her head. She winced and a flash of memory–or what seemed like memory–hit her.

“Clio,” someone had said. “We’ve know about you for quite a while, so let’s be friends, shall we?”

She had no idea where the thought was from. She closed her eyes, fingers pressed hard against her temples as incoherent flashes of memories teased her. She remembered voices, though, talking to her in a haze. There was a soothing voice at the end…and a pretty smile.

Clio shuddered and opened her eyes. Her hands trembled a little as she picked up the dossier again; she flipped to the front. A serial number was linked to her name, like the one on the security card. WW22IC01. She couldn’t decipher any meaning from it.

She looked more closely at the chart that was labeled Therapy.

Phase 1: Candidate Observation

Phase 2: Initiate Status/Induction

Phase 3: Strange Loop/Subjectivity and Escape

Phase 4: Greater Mysteries/Things Done, Things Shown, Things Said

Phase 5: Reduction of Name/Form and Detox

Phase 6: Initiate Elect/Reentry

Phase 7: Aggregate Relinquishment

Phase 8: Hierophant/Ascendancy

“Hierophant,” Clio whispered. She knew vaguely what that was: an old word for something like a priest. It was one of the major Tarot cards, too. But she could only guess at its symbolism, and how it related to her.

Maybe whoever was behind the Gauntlet was part of some weird, modern cult. She looked up, almost expecting a troop of tambourine-playing supplicants to dance into the office with chants on their lips. If they thought she’d be into that, they’d be sorely disappointed.

She let the folder drop and wondered again why anyone would want her for this. How had they ever found her? Chosen her? It was clear now that she probably couldn’t avoid whatever they were trying to do–scare her, teach her, use her, it was all the same. She was trapped in a cage someone had elaborately prepared.

But if she was a victim, she’d go out fighting. If she was a lab rat, she’d surprise them. If she really was some kind of initiate, then she had to admit, she wanted to find out why. And under whose order?

An even deeper truth pushed its way into her awareness. Something that had been poking at her subconscious for days.

She’d been terrified more than once in this place–scared for her life, even. But some of it, especially the times with Britt, had been…exhilarating. Her fear had been tempered by a dark sense of curiosity.

She’d come to the city because she’d wanted something more than an average existence. She’d wanted a challenge–something new, something special. She had the strange feeling that the same desire was tied to this, somehow.

There was only one way to find out. Clio stood up.

Her determination was foiled when the door labeled Labs failed to open to her security card. It was the smaller writing on the door that really piqued her interest: Experimental Philosophy, Practical Psychosomatics, Psychotropic Mentalism. She recognized some of the names–from the pamphlet she’d found in the lobby at the very beginning of the Gauntlet.

A sudden thought struck her. Had that been her induction? The Jacks? The lobby?

She swiped the card again, but the door beeped in angry warning. The display flashed: Access level J denied.

Her disappointment was punctuated by the biohazard symbol beneath the placard.  Somehow, it made her desire to see what was inside even stronger. She had a feeling it was meant to tease her. She rattled the door and sulked a little.

But the next door was intriguing enough to make up for it. Who could possibly resist something called Karmic Theater? She held her breath, but this time the door clicked open. She stepped into a velvet jewelry box of a hallway, lined with dark red walls and carpeting. It ended in an archway covered by a shiny black curtain that draped gracefully to the floor.

Anticipation sent a little thrill to the depths of her belly. She quickly drew the curtain aside and emerged into a room that fulfilled the promise of the lush hallway. It was intimate–a theater in the round–but decadent with colored fabrics, enveloping her with a rich, plush ambience that managed to be both comforting and exotic.

She sank into one of the chairs that ringed the stage, disappearing into its depths. She stared up at the proscenium arch that loomed in front of her. A soft, amber spotlight shone just beneath it.

No show began. No actors waiting in the wings appeared.

Perhaps she was the show.

Clio couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. She’d always hated being the center of attention. She didn’t sing or dance particularly well, and she certainly had no desire to perform in front of an audience, even an invisible one.

But she found herself climbing the steps to the stage and pirouetting in the spotlight–just because they might think she wouldn’t. Then she made a deep bow, letting her hair fall forward, and dramatically flung it back as she rose again.

It was only then, in the suddenly oppressive and obvious silence, did self-consciousness flood a flush to her face. She turned abruptly and exited stage left, passing through another black curtain. She entered a new room that made her gasp with unexpected delight.

If the theater was amazing, this room was a dream. Racks upon racks of costumes lined the walls of the round room and ringed the edges of the center dais. It was a color wheel of fabrics and periods and styles, ranging from the mundane to the fantastic. It filled Clio with childish glee.

The sunken center of the room was circled by a ring of low, cushioned benches. Inside stood three ornate cheval mirrors, positioned to allow the viewer to see herself from all angles.

At first, a reluctance to make a spectacle of herself here held her back…but it was quickly overcome by her desire to try on the fantastic outfits. Soon, a pile of silk, tulle, satin, leather, and polyester grew around her as she tried and discarded costume after costume.

She quickly tired of the more elaborate getups; they were almost impossible to do up properly without help, and once they were on, they were a nightmare to walk around in. Struggling to breathe counteracted any grand romance she felt sweeping around in enormous skirts and tight bodices. But she admired herself dutifully and then moved on.

She adored the superhero section. The tight leotards and knee-high boots were much more to her liking, though she sadly noted that she didn’t fill out the tops the way comic heroines did. She jumped experimentally in front of the long mirrors, eyeing herself.

“Anyway,” she said aloud. “I can probably run faster without having to worry about a good support bra.”

She grinned at herself and snapped the golden rope in her hand. It trailed behind her as she walked along the curved racks.

If she was playing right into some cliché, or whatever it was they expected from her, she’d stopped caring. She just wished Britt was there to join her.

She giggled a little, imagining Britt’s expression if Clio showed up out of the blue wearing a costume. She laughed even harder at the thought of Britt stuffed into one of the enormous dresses.

As much as Clio was enjoying herself, she needed to move on, and there was no way she would wander the Gauntlet in a star-spangled leotard. A solution presented itself a moment later, when she turned into a little alcove that held a hidden treasure of clothing and accessories.

Clio sucked in a breath as her hands flew to her mouth. She stared avidly at the display of leather and brocade, buckles, knobs, gears, and most of all, beautiful boots. It was a steampunk aficionado’s dream.

An excited squeak escaped her lips, and Clio abruptly lunged at a pair of flat, knee-high boots with an abundance of hardware. The supple brown leather felt buttery smooth beneath her fingers as she explored them with a fetishist’s enthusiasm.

She released the last of her inhibitions to the wind, and soon strutted in front of the looking glass with an admiring gaze for own image. She pleasingly filled out a pair of black leather shorts with triple flaps that buckled on the sides of her legs. The snug vest cinched her waist and made her look curvier than usual. The knee-high boots–the crowning glory–were quite simply kickass.

She rotated, admiring herself from all sides. In this, she felt powerful. Even sexy.

The thought made her blush a little. She probably couldn’t walk around in this outfit without feeling self-conscious.

“But I’m keeping the boots!”

They would still be in stark contrast to her white sundress, which was little more than a dust rag at that point. She went back to the alcove to make a few alterations. Happily, Clio found a pair of narrow denim pants decorated with an abundance of loose straps–some swung from hip to hip, some looped and buckled around each thigh. The straps were probably more decorative than functional, but she still looked badass in them, and they went great with the boots.

She added a soft gray camisole with crisscrossing straps of black, studded with silver rivets. Clio also took a rich leather belt and bag combination that lay low around her hips; they buckled around her thigh at the bottom, keeping the bag snug against her hip. A last-minute impulse made her snatch up the shorts and tuck them into the bag.

The prowlers had taken her backpack. Whoever was behind dumping her in the Gauntlet was responsible, so the way she saw it, she had every right to help herself. She was disturbed at the possibility that this was all some weird psychological test, and that they would be analyzing her every move, but that wasn’t enough to deter her from this tiny win.

Besides, she felt better equipped to fight now: those boots could do some damage. She smirked into the mirror, raising her knee up and executing a slow front kick.

She gladly left the dirty heap of her old dress, but after some thought, she retrieved Black Jack’s jacket. Somehow, it felt like a piece of reality–something to hang onto, anyway. And it’s warm, she further justified.

She slung it over her shoulder and took one last look at herself in the mirror. With her new clothes, and her hair pulled back tightly with a makeshift band torn from her dress, she looked older. Tougher. Britt wouldn’t look at her with exasperated pity now.

Not as often, anyway.

Clio was tougher, and she’d discovered a lot in this expedition. She had so much to tell Britt when she found her again. And she would find her.

When Clio retraced her steps to discover the door with the key card was a one-way trip, she took it in stride. She went back to the stage…where a true surprise waited for her back in the wings.

It was a door marked with a star–and each of the five points was graced with a symbol from her bracelet. As Clio’s heart began to race, she turned the handle. No lock.

The door opened to a snugly appointed room. The warm shade of the paint, the thick carpet, and the cozy, quirky furnishings all waited to cocoon her within a personal and intimate world. It was the antithesis of the sad, ugly dorms of the abandoned hallways; this room was perfection, clean and inviting, as if prepared with everything that could possibly entice her.

And of course, it probably had been. But she stopped caring if it was a reward, or a trap, or anything else. She gave into the inevitable. This one day, she would allow herself to eat, to bathe, and to sleep in comfort.

Before her eyes closed that night, she admitted to herself, all snuggled up in the safety of the softest sheets, that she was almost looking forward to whatever came next.

Proceed to Chapter 3, page 3–>