It's My Party

She heard Mark sigh over the phone and say, "ID Tags 10 and 133 are no longer in the system. The census counter is confirming it, 009:079." Mark heard Emily mumble a curse in reply. She took a moment to tell her team, and then he asked her, "How's the search coming?"

Emily didn't pull any punches. "Mark, this is so frustrating! We're still in The Labyrinth, been here since dawn checking corridors Aggie's team flagged for us yesterday. They're much more extensive than we anticipated. This place is literally a 3-D maze, three to five layers of structures. It's so convoluted, as if we're tracing strands in a bowl of spaghetti." Emily paused for a moment and looked around at the corridors and her tired teammates. She half shouted, "This could take years!"

Mark heard several deep breaths over the phone, and then Emily continued. "Right now we're in a sublevel three floors below ground. It's a nightmare of twisting corridors connected by steep staircases and sometimes even ladders. That's my decision right now. We've come to a T-intersection in the corridor, and there's also a ladder here. You decide Mark. Do I go left, right, or up a level?"

"Uh, go up."

"You got it, up it is."

Mark asked Emily as she climbed, "Still lots of side rooms?"

"Oh yeah, tons. And we're finding such odd supplies in them too, precious metals, board games, a number of bathrooms, just about everything except food. And oh yeah, this is something I already told Fatima about. About fifteen minutes ago we found an archery room, bows, arrows, crossbows, targets, just about everything related to archery. The room even has a shooting range."

"Oh wow."

"Yeah, it's quite a setup. We just left it for now, but we have the position recorded at the Hilton."

"Crossbows are a formidable weapon."

"I know. I handled a few of the bolts, wicked deadly." There was a pause as Emily changed mental gears. "Hell, Mark, we're on the new level now, and we can't even call out. The doors block sound completely, and a lot of the side rooms have additional rooms. Every little alcove as to be inspected.'

Mark couldn't think of what to say besides offering encouragement. He kept it brief and let Emily return to her work.

Time: Monday, March 4, 2019 6 PM

There were two consoles at the island library. Lynn was working at one in the corner of the room along the wall corresponding to the northern vertex, while Madison was busy at the other station along the northwestern vertex wall. Midway between them was library's only entrance, a door leading to the hexagonal corridor that orbited the six public rooms. Behind them on the opposite side of the room was a transparent wall that overlooked the large core atrium four meters below.

Up on the surface, sunset today occurred at 4:44 PM, but her in Wobanakik the linear sun was still shining and would set at 7:50 PM. If Madison turned around, she would see butter yellow sunlight flooding into the kitchen on the east side of the atrium. She would also see Jada staring out across the atrium and watching Emily in the library. Meanwhile a number of other women in the kitchen were busy preparing a fine dinner, a banquet to celebrate all their recent progress. Jada left the kitchen and walked counter-clockwise past the lounge and into the library.

Both Madison and Lynn gave her brief smiles as she entered. Jada grinned and came to Lynn first and said, "I know you've only had about an hour, but how does it look?"

Lynn rolled her eyes. "Wow! I can't take the pressure!" And then she got serious. "All indications are that this is going to be an immense job. Don't expect anything soon."

Jada nodded. "Any guess at all? Days? Months? Years?" She paused for a moment. "Lifetimes?"

Lynn shook her head. "No guess yet. But I think it's an open-ended system."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, that means there's good news and bad news. The good news is there will always be something to try. On the other hand, there are effectively an infinite number of things to try, and I'm not going to live that long."

Jada and Lynn heard Madison groan across the room. Jada patted Lynn's shoulder and said, "Well, I better let you get back to work."

"Uh huh. Jada?"

"Yeah?"

"This Friday, when a team goes back to the entrance rooms, I should go too."

Jada blinked. "You can work better from there?!"

"No. I can't work there at all. The interface is here. But I need to talk to Akiko, bounce around a few ideas. I'll return here at the end of the day."

Jada thought for only a moment. "Sure. Consider yourself on the river team."

Lynn nodded and got back to work. Jada wandered over to Madison and gave her a friendly smile. "You look busy."

Madison smiled back. "And I've found something too. Look at this!" Madison displayed something on her console that reminded Jada of a slightly distorted sine wave. "Time is on the horizontal axis," Madison said with a bit of pride. "The vertical is the length of a Wobanakik day. I hereby predict that a year down here lasts 252 days."

Jada eyes lit up. "Great work Madison! How did you do that?"

Madison looked momentarily sad. "There was a woman named Roxanne in Sandra's group. She had a diary and a digital watch. She recorded the precise time of linear sunrise and sunset since the first day they got here, every day she could until she died. And then Thara took over the recording. I had to correct for the slightly shorter day but that was easy. The data describe enough of the yearly cycle to tell me what the annual period is. It even tells me our simulated latitude."

"Which is?"

"The best fit to the data is to imagine us on a planet with a circular orbit and an Earthlike axis tilt of 24 degrees. Pick a spot at 42 degrees latitude, north or south. And let the circular orbital period be 252 days. Roxanne's data fit that scenario perfectly."

Madison typed for a while and brought up an additional chart. "When Sandra's group came here, Wobanakik was in the last phase of its winter. They've lived here almost a full season. See the maximum day range of 4:52 AM to 8:01 PM? I'm predicting we'll get there in another eighteen days, April 8th on our new calendar."

Jada thought for a moment. "My gosh Madison, it's exactly a three to two ratio."

"Yep! Two years here are exactly three years topside. It would make for some interesting living if we could travel back and forth."

Jada nodded, thinking of the implications. She had a sudden thought. "Do you think we should start a new calendar?"

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

"I mean create a new calendar for Wobanakik. It would be easy, just have three weeks per month instead of two."

Madison looked horrified. "Hell no Jada! The surface is the real year. We're just living in a glorified cave down here. I hate the thought of some mechanical timer forcing us to adapt to its settings. It seems so arbitrary."

Jada pulled up a chair and sat down besides Madison. "Oh, I don't know Maddy. I'm not saying to forget about the topside calendar. But Wobanakik is large enough to be its own world. We could call the summer solstice July 1, year one W.E., and let each Wobanakik month have three weeks. That would put us in early June now."

Madison looked skeptical but considered the idea. "Well, I guess that would align the months with the seasonal changes. Yeah, maybe something to consider. Anyway, what's for dinner?"

"Ah, a real feast. Hungry?"

"You bet!"

A moment later all three women left the library.

Time: Monday, March 4, 2019 9:47 PM

Emily was pushing her time in The Labyrinth past her limit. In her heart she knew that Fatima had told her to return to the Waterhole by 10 PM, and Emily had twisted that into a command to be RETURNING to the Waterhole by 10 PM. But even that stretch would only give her about another ten minutes of search time. Emily looked fretfully over her tired group of Ashley, Brandi, and Whitney. They all deserved a good rest, though no one was complaining. It had been a very long day.

But this was a prime search area and Emily didn't want to abandon it before checking out all of its tiny rooms. They were in a series of sixty-four small rooms arranged in 4 x 4 x 4 cubical grid, a configuration Ashley had labeled a box-maze. Emily suspected there was only one way in or out of the box, an innocent looking door at the end of a corridor that would open from the outside but not from the inside once the door remained closed for more than a minute.

It was thus the perfect setup for a trap. Two or more people could test the door easily and think they were okay, but once the door remained closed for a minute, everybody on the inside would be trapped. Emily's group had come across numerous such doors today, and it was only through Emily's janitorial authority that they managed to exit the mazes after searching them.

And in their current box-maze there were several rooms on the second level that they still hadn't found how to reach. Emily's team walked into a corner room on the top level and was surprised to see a window. It was not designed to be opened, and Emily assumed it was unbreakable. She took a second to glance at the stars in the moonless sky.

Whitney tapped Emily's shoulder and gestured with her arm. There was a ladder array on the opposite wall, with a closed door in the floor leading down. Whitney walked across the small room and slid the door open. She peered down into the cell below.

"Looks like another storage area. But there's another ladder on the wall opposite this one. That should get us to the second level."

Emily nodded as she jotted down the geometry in her notebook. "That should be it then, the last three rooms on the second level. Let's check this out and we'll be finished for the night. I'll check in with Fatima. I hope she doesn't chew me out too badly."

The group went four meters down the ladder and then across the small four-meter by four-meter cubical room. They soon descended into an identical looking storage room. No one was bothering to see what the cabinets contained.

"Just two more rooms to go," thought Whitney wearily as she led the way. She went to a side door in the cube and slid it open, revealing one of the ubiquitous toilet and bath areas that were so common to The Labyrinth. And there on a pile of clothes in the center of the small room lay two people. Whitney blinked as her mind tried to comprehend what she was seeing. At first she thought they might be large, deflated dolls. It should be physically impossible for a real person to be this thin. But then Whitney saw an arm move and a head turn, and she cried out in sorrow. A second later she brushed the pity aside and leaped to help the starving people.

Twenty minutes later.

"They both seem be resting peacefully now," Emily reported over the phone. "We haven't spoken verbally yet, but Fatima, they've just shown us they have excellent linking abilities. Their names are Lucia and Husna."

Emily heard Fatima give a small cry over the phone. "Emily, do you need assistance?"

"They're so frail, I'd be inclined not to move them for a while. But they both seem to be holding down our saline and sugar solution. And there is a purse here with an empty bottle of vitamin tablets. Maybe that's what saved them. We've given them our blankets… Fatima, do you want us to move them tonight? I'd be inclined to let us treat them here for a day, maybe even two. All my teammates will be happy to stay."

"Emily, how long would it take to bring them to the home complex?"

Emily sighed. "It's not going to be easy. It's an hour walk just back to the Waterhole, and if we have these people on stretchers, the ladders are going to be a problem. I really don't want to drop anyone."

"Yes, all right, keep them where you are. There are no signs of the remaining two missing nurses, are there?"

"No, not in this box. I'm hoping to link again in a few minutes, after we try another few sips of the sugar water. I'll ask again. I got a very strange answer before, incoherent, something about a trip."

Fatima acknowledged and rested her head on Mark's shoulder. Toshi was on Fatima's other side and was hugging her around her waist. Fatima turned to her future sister-wife and locked eyes. "It's so strange Toshi! Relief and sorrow, all mixed together!"

"Do you want to rest?" asked Toshi. "I could dream you to a nice beach, or a quiet place by a lake."

"No, that's okay, thank you. I want to stay in normal time." Fatima broke the link and returned Toshi's affectionate hug while she waited for Emily to report back.

Chapter 65.

Four days later.

Time: Friday, March 8, 2019 5 PM

It had been a long but very productive day, and now Jada was in the homestretch of returning to the central island. She was in the lead boat and had a clear view of their destination only two kilometers ahead. Her convoy had just entered the southeastern end of the highly elongated central lake that contained their home, and at that point they had split in two. Jada and Mandy were both in expedition kayaks and towing Little Auks. Lynn was also paddling with them. On their right and pulling away were Madison, Charles, and Parni, paddling three additional kayaks to the unexplored northwestern shore near its closest approach to the island. Madison jokingly characterized this last part of the mission as installing a telephone booth.

So many wonderful supplies they were bringing back! Fatima had sent down the fourth of their society's five captured pistols. Now Carla and Tom at the entrance rooms and Madison and Charles here were all armed. And Fatima had also given Jada two of the brand new Leophones. Lynn was carrying one back to the central island, and the team heading for shore intended to padlock the other one in a strongbox and chain it to a tree.

Fifteen people would be at the island tonight, with a total of ten kayaks in the boathouse. The days were still full of things to do. Mandy was giving two classes per day in kayaking and the two library consoles were literally in constant use, with Lynn having the absolute right to use one whenever she wanted. Everybody else used the sign-up logs.

And yet there was also much free time. Their stay here was beginning to feel like a vacation. Sandra's team was still overjoyed with the change of venue. No fears of animal attacks, opulent bedrooms and fabulous food, watching a movie or listening to music in the lounge, working out in the gym or just strolling the six hundred meters of the island's perimeter, in total it was an insanely idyllic life. Jada's one worry was when would it start to get boring?

Well, that was a worry for another day. Jada's mind returned to the bittersweet news of the end of the search for Red Mall survivors. Only two women had been rescued, all the others had perished. The census counter had dropped to 009:077 late yesterday evening.

And the news from Black Mall was so quiet, it seemed ominous. There had been no sighting of Jessica since the day of her disaster with Alfonso. There was no sign of Ricardo either. But the other four men were working furiously gathering supplies they were very careful never to reveal, and Hannah reported that the treatment of Alfonso was horrible. He was being worked figuratively and perhaps even literally to death.

The river current was now its maximum and the hexagonal island fast approaching. Jada brushed the extraneous thoughts from her mind and concentrated on inserting her kayak into exactly the right flow line.

Meanwhile, approximately six kilometers south and 1.5 kilometers above…

Fatima walked into the cubical room serving as Lucia's makeshift bedroom. She took off her backpack and gave the patient a kind smile. Lucia grinned back from her cot and said hello.

"Sorry I took four days to get here," said Fatima. "It's great to see you sitting up though."

"Ah, you must be Fatima. Husna has told me so much about you. I'm honored."

Fatima laughed. "Hah!"

"I gather Husna is sleeping?"

Fatima nodded and sat down besides the cot, her eyes even without linking clearly showing her happiness over Lucia's improving condition.

Lucia grinned. "Well, I've had great care. Emily turned my stomach back on in just the right way, juices and milk the first day, crackers and breads added on the second, and then yesterday we started on small portions of egg and meat proteins." Lucia raised her bone-thin arm and stared at it for a moment. "I must still look like a scarecrow to you, but this is really a big improvement, and I have so much more energy now."

In spite of the boast, Lucia then took a deep breath and yawned before looking at Fatima's backpack. "I take it you didn't come with Emily?"

Fatima shook her head. "She's taking a well deserved nap right now. Besides, we don't need her to get here, just to get back."

Lucia nodded. "Right. Emily and Whitney explained that to me, some of the others too. They told us everything, what this place is, the destruction of the Earth, all the things you've done and are trying to do. I take it you know all about us?"

Fatima shrugged. "The gist of it from talking to a few of the away team. I haven't had time to listen to the audio recordings." She pulled a bottle out of her backpack. "Here, I brought you something, fresh grapefruit juice!"

Lucia took a large sip. "Ah, delicious, thank you." After another sip, she continued, "Fatima, I'd be happy to fill you in on the details of what happened to us. Do you want to hear a summary?"

"You up for it?"

"Sure! And thanks for not linking. I guess you know, it speeds up the body's metabolism. Emily advised Husna and me to avoid it until we regain a few more kilos."

Fatima nodded. "Right, I understand. I gather that's what speeded up your starvation process."

"Yeah. I was talking about this yesterday. Your three super-minds were here for a visit, packing in more supplies."

"Super-minds? Oh, you mean Mark and his two wives."

"Uh huh. I couldn't resist. I cajoled Mark into linking with me for a few seconds. What awesome power!"

Fatima looked puzzled. "That's an interesting comment. Mark and I, we're not exactly engaged in a formal way, but we both expect to marry someday."

"Yes, I know."

"I find it's a super smooth transition to link with him, with Toshi and Frida too, and it is exhilarating to enter the dream worlds they create, but I never felt any particular sense of power."

Lucia dismissed Fatima's remark with a shake of her head. "That's because you haven't practiced enough. My group was isolated for two months. We had nothing to do except link with each other, and the skills and sensitivities grow with practice. Believe me, your three super-minds are awesome!"

Fatima grinned. "Okay, I believe you. I can't wait to tell Mark your opinion of him. He has a bashful side. It's fun to make him blush."

Lucia nodded. "I saw a little of his love for you in our link, for all of you. Want to know something? Part of his embarrassment is being sexually interested in so many women at the same time. He still hasn't adjusted to it."

"He showed you that?"

"I saw it. He wasn't particularly offering but he didn't resist my probes."

Fatima tilted her head in puzzlement.

"Imagine lying down and letting someone explore your body, explore it completely, your entire skin, in between your toes, the inside of your mouth and nostrils, everyplace possible. That's what Mark sort of allowed me to do with his mind. It was a mini trip."

"Hmm… Emily explained that concept to me a bit, your concept of tripping."

"It's a real phenomenon, more than linking, less than what Mark can do. There were eight of us trapped here. Emily calls this place a box-maze. Tripping allows two minds to mesh very tightly. It allows one mind to shield the other from its fears. It's how we would face eternity when our bodies were giving out, how we'd spare ourselves the fright of dying alone. It's amazing how easily Mark can unwind from tripping. For us it's very difficult, and the death of one mind would pull down the other linked with it."