Chapter 47: Surprise Party

~ Takyle proceeded down the hall, cursing under her breath at each door that her key failed to open. Andrew cleared his throat.

"Maybe we're missing something here. We don't know if this key works in any of these doors. I mean, the thing just said the items were for the next level." Takyle turned to Andrew and raised her hands.

"Well what do you propose we do, Andrew? We've already been through this once and we know that the unlocked doors just lead back here!"

"Maybe since then some others have been unlocked, I don't know."

"Hey, shut up, you two!" Jaden hissed at them. "Listen." Without the cover of Andrew and Takyle's conversation, what Jaden had heard was obvious. Unfamiliar voices, not terribly far off, and sounding as if they were coming closer. Andrew touched Jaden's arm and along with Takyle they withdrew and ducked through the only unlocked door, the first one Andrew had marked on their previous time around. Takyle, leaving the door a quarter of an inch ajar to observe the hallway, gestured to Andrew to watch their backs. Meanwhile she pulled a tiny mirror out of a pocket on her backpack and set it in the opening so that she could watch the end of the hallway where the voices had seemed to be coming from, in the opposite direction of the live-sim door,.

"I see them," she murmured. "They...It looks like another race team. What are they doing here? It must be a mistake..."

"Well we heard them, so they probably heard you guys. Even if they didn't they'll see the marked door and try it," Jaden whispered to her. "Maybe we should just go ahead and beat them to finding us, or get the hell out of here while we can." Takyle shot Andrew a glance. He shrugged.

"I've never heard of a race in which the teams met up. Maybe it is a mistake somehow?" Takyle nodded and took one more look in her mirror before pocketing it and waving them forward. They stepped out into the hallway facing their competitors, who looked just as shocked and bewildered as the members of Team 6 felt. They immediately stopped in their tracks and compressed into a tight knot, obviously assuming the worst.

Jaden eyed the competition. They were all male, all looked to be older than anyone in his team, but still in their twenties, if barely. They looked a good deal swarthier than the average citizen as well.

Takyle took one step forward, slightly closing the gap of several yards.

"We're Team 6. I don't know what happened here, or why we're in the same level, but we-"

"Quiet, lady!" one of the other team interrupted rudely. He turned his face slightly to his teammates, keeping his eyes on Takyle. "What is this, Cal? Is this supposed to happen?" Cal answered in a strained sounding tenor that seriously mismatched his appearance.

"I don't know. Maybe? This might just all be another challenge in another sim."

"I don't think so-" Takyle started to say. The first speaker jerked a hatchet from his belt and strode forward three steps in a show of bravado.

"I said shut up!"

Andrew and Jaden stepped up to either side of Takyle, knives unsheathed.

"I think you need to simmer down and take a few deep breaths," Andrew counseled in his usual quiet, strong voice, but it was laced with threat that always at once scared and reassured Jaden. The man did take a step back, but didn't look as if he calmed down all that much.

"As I was saying," Takyle stated in an icy voice."I don't think that this is a sim. We believe that this is real. Possibly the first real obstacle. Why we're in it together, I don't know. Have you been in a sim where you had to find three objects yet?" All three men on the other team glared at Takyle.

"Don't tell them anything, John! It's probably a trap, real or not," said the last of the trio, finally getting to throw in his three cents worth, and looking satisfied for having done it. Then he excitedly added another thought. "Maybe we're supposed to kill them!" ~