It's My Party

Should they engage with Black Mall again? Fatima was still resisting the idea, but there was another meeting scheduled at 1 PM today, and she was trying to keep an open mind. She valued Mark's opinion very highly, and it unsettled her that he had switched to Amber's argument for contact. Fatima took a deep breath and tried to put the issue out of her mind. The network reset at Wobanakik was six hours away. That should be her focus now. She got up and headed for the kitchen hoping to find some company for breakfast.

Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 7 AM

A final test on Diego's chains and then they were off, a party of four consisting of Ricardo, Jessica, Jenaro, and Hernando. They began their like heading slightly west of due south across the open grassland. The beginning of the berm maze was actually somewhat closer directly southwest, but further south along the barrier wall, there appeared to be pinkish structure, some sort of tower with stairs up to the top level of the berm maze, and that's where Ricardo was headed.

There had been a nasty, slushy storm the previous Sunday, then three days of very moderate weather, and then finally yesterday one last taste of winter, cold blowing winds that had left a dusting of snow. The thin frost had not yet started to melt, but Ricardo expected it would soon.

For three days Ricardo had kept his men down in the Mall, everyone except Alfonso armed and waiting in ambush for their enemy to make an appearance. But the enemy had never shown, and Ricardo was now willing to gamble they never would. Alfonso was the lone guard at Jacob's now, chained as before under the overhead door at Jacob's. After some thought, Ricardo let Diego leave Alfonso a gun. Their male slave swore to Diego he would defend the opening with his life. Ricardo had grinned when he heard this. What a joke! What choice did Alfonso have?

And early this morning Diego was chained to a small area on the first floor at the southern vertex of their home perimeter. He had twenty four-liter jugs of water with him, several months' worth of dry food, a mattress, a commode, and an ample supply of plastic bags to store his waste. At Diego's request, Ricardo also let him have binoculars and a few books from the library.

Diego's instructions were simple and clear. He was to open the door only when Ricardo returned, and most emphatically not if any of the other explorers returned without Ricardo. Only Ricardo would have the key to unlock Diego from his chains, and the chains appeared to be made from the other-world stuff that would be impossible to break.

And so after leaving the bare minimum of two people behind, Ricardo's team of four headed south an hour after sunrise. It had been months since anyone had done any walking outside, not since being on Earth, and now the experience felt somewhat novel. They quickly hiked across the first kilometer of flat grassland, occasionally turning back to glance at their receding home. As they walked, it became apparent they were walking down a slight incline.

Both Jenaro and Hernando found it difficult to keep their eyes off Jessica as they walked. She looked so completely different than the person they knew before. The new Jessica was dressed in bright but modest clothes, a style completely different from the low slung jeans that used to show off her bare hips and abdomen. With her boyish hips and smallish tits, Jenaro thought she looked like a twelve-year old who was just entering puberty.

Her hair was braided in girlish pigtails with ribbons, and she was skipping like a schoolgirl with childish delight. And her eyes! Jenaro had only glanced at them once. Fucking hell! Jenaro somehow got the impression that Jessica was thinking of Ricardo as the most wonderful person in the world. She had a crush on him, thinking of him as a father she was desperate to please and also someone she was desperately hoping to get sexy with.

Jenaro shook his head in confusion. How did he know all this? He had no idea, but he was certain he was right.

And the hike continued, the men walking and Jessica often breaking into skips. As they approached the pink tower, Ricardo turned and looked back towards home. They had dropped about three meters in their one-kilometer hike. This was consistent with Ricardo's earlier estimate that the perimeter wall to the berm maze was seven meters high, and also that the top of the wall was level with the second floor of the southern vertex.

Ricardo also noticed something that was not visible from the home complex. Two to three kilometers to his right was the great twelve-meter wall that cut off all access to the northwest. As the perimeter wall of the maze approached this great wall, the grasslands in front of it began to drop. By the time the two walls touched, the drop was enormous, the last hundred meters of grassland dropping down at a steep 45 degree angle, with the walls more than a hundred meters from base to top. Attempting a crossing there would be truly impossible.

At last they came to the base of the magenta-pink tower. Except for the color, Ricardo thought the edifice looked like a small Mayan temple. It had very broad bank of steep stairs. Ricardo gave Jessica two hand signals, one to make some measurements with the laser rangefinder that he had taught her how to use, and a second command to give a verbal report. Jessica complied at once, smiling in happiness for the chance to be of use to her new father and hopefully future lover.

"Stairs are twenty-five meters across," she called out a moment later. "The rise reads seven meters exactly, and the run 9.77 meters. I count thirty-six stairs." Jessica then looked timidly at Ricardo's hand of command. She was hoping for the sign of approval.

Should he give it? He had not asked her to count the stairs. But Ricardo decided her overwhelming eagerness to please him was just what he wanted, and he rewarded her by pinching his thumb and middle finger together. Jessica bowed her head in gratitude and turned away just as she had been taught, a bright smile on her face. A moment later the group walked up the stairs. Ricardo spent a long moment staring at the very strange scene at the top. It appeared their journey was about to become much more challenging.

Before them was a seemingly endless expanse of small random moguls, surprisingly uniform in height. Ricardo guessed the smallest to be just over a meter, while the tallest about the height of Jessica's neck. But it wasn't the uniform height that was so bizarre. It was the composition. Ricardo and everyone in his group stared in disbelief. The mini hills were made out of… shaving cream?

That's what it look like anyway, gigantic mounds of fluffy pale green shaving cream, heaped up in rolls a meter-plus high and running for as far as the eye could see. But thankfully they did not have to walk through the cream. There was a narrow, gently winding path before them, with a smooth floor that looked like plastic and sea green in color, much darker than the pale shaving cream. The sight before them was so ridiculous that Hernando couldn't stop himself. He started laughing.

Ricardo gave him a hard stare. "Touch it!"

"Huh?"

Ricardo shifted his cane to his more powerful strike hand. "You heard me. Touch the foam."

Hernando's mouth twitched. He nervously took his backpack off and rooted around inside for a probe. Ricardo let this pass without comment. Hernando finally pulled out a Bowie knife and tried to scratch the foam with its tip. The tip dipped in and out of the foam without leaving a mark.

"What did that feel like?" asked Ricardo, genuinely curious.

"It didn't feel like anything. I couldn't tell I was touching anything." Hernando tried again, a deeper cut, and then he moved the flat of the blade through the foam. "Same thing, nothing at all. I can't even feel that it's there." After a moment of hesitation, he sniffed the knife blade. "Doesn't smell like anything either."

Hernando sheathed his knife and tried to pretend he was finished. Ricardo angrily tapped his cane on the floor. Hernando responded with a quick nod and then slowly moved his finger towards the foam, acting as if it were about to burn him. And then his fingertip made contact.

Hernando looked puzzled. A few seconds later he pushed his entire hand into the foam and then pulled it out, staring at his hand. "Fucking hell! I felt nothing at all. I was pushing into air!"

That didn't make any sense to Ricardo. "Try scooping some up with both hands."

"Uh… Yeah, sure, okay." Hernando cupped both hands and tried to scoop the foam from its pile. The result surprised everybody. The foam rapidly climbed up the insides of his hands and then slid off and fell quickly back into the pile.

Ricardo felt baffled. What was this stuff? Some sort of super fluid that had no viscosity and was as light as air? Ricardo had a vague memory that liquid helium could act something like this. But hell, they were just standing out here in the open. This was not cryogenic temperatures. And besides, light as air? But the foam fell rapidly, as fast as a solid object. Ricardo had seen it. Why didn't it just float in the air if it had the density of air? Fucking hell! If it had no viscosity, how could it stay rolled up in fat mounds?

Ricardo shook his head as if to clear it. Who cares?! The important point was the foam did not appear to be dangerous, and they had a path before them that would be easy to follow, and it was heading where Ricardo wanted to go. Things could certainly be a lot worse. So without further thought, Ricardo herded his group southeast along the gently curving path, the pale green foam on their left and right a short meter away.

Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 9 AM

It had been a bizarre hike of almost two hours, but Ricardo's group could finally see their goal. The sea-green tower at the other end of the crescent maze was directly ahead and now only a few hundred meters away. They would be there in minutes.

And it was none too soon for everybody. After ten kilometers of walking, the monotonous path was now quite difficult to walk. It was less than two and a half meters wide, and everybody's muscles were aching from the forced march down the narrow centerline.

"What a strange maze," thought Ricardo. It was in the shape of a giant crescent. They knew that now, having walked back and forth in lazy serpentine switchbacks across its fat meaty center. Ricardo estimated their position now at approximately two kilometers south and two kilometers east of home. He took a moment to glance back over his shoulder at the path behind. Why did he call this place a maze? There were no branches in the path they had taken. It was one simple undulating path, a piece of cake. But a nagging thought in the back of Ricardo's mind was warning him something this bizarre shouldn't be so easy to cross. Because if crossing it were this easy, what was the point of having the foam?

Shortly after 9 AM, they reached the opposite side of the maze, and there they met another real challenge. Their path ended at a tower similar to the one they had used to enter the maze, but here at the outer perimeter there was a significant difference.

The new tower was taller than the tower they had entered through. Here the walls were a full six meters above the floor level of the maze, and as before the maze floor was seven meters above the ground level of the grassland beyond the tower. Ricardo could see clearly now the great line of buildings that was his destination. They were about a half kilometer away, and it Ricardo wanted, they could reach the buildings in a few minutes.

But before they could reach them, they had a major decision to make. There were no stairs in the new tower. Instead there was a huge parabolic slide. If they took the trip down, how would they get back up? Could they climb the slide? Ricardo signaled Jessica to make some measurements with her laser and then he told Hernando to feel the slide. Ricardo had decided to keep picking on Hernando for this trip. The last thing he wanted to do was to treat the two men with him equally.

"Oh yuck!" Hernando cried out. "It's covered with oil!" He pulled up his hand and stared at it. It was bone dry. "I don't understand," he grumbled. "I could feel the oil. I swear it."

Ricardo tried next, and then stood up and thought furiously about his options. For a second he wished he had Diego here for his opinion, but then his mind angrily dismissed the useless wish. It was essential Diego remain where he was. But what to do now?

The slide was the same color as the tower and the perimeter walls, a sea green slightly darker than the floor they were walking on. But its texture was completely different. It felt slipperier than oil over glass. And why had it taken them so long to learn this? Ricardo cursed himself for not feeling the texture of the perimeter wall before they climbed the stairs of the pink tower. The walls were so perfectly clean. Not a speck of dirt was clinging to them. But it just never occurred to him to touch the walls.

Ricardo tried to force himself to feel optimistic as he looked at the slide before them. Perhaps with a long pole… Yes! If they had a long pole, they could extend it from the bottom and then rope-climb up the pole. That should do it. But should they assume they'd find material for such a pole in the buildings beyond, or should they return home and make one from materials from the mall? Ricardo didn't want to waste a day, but he didn't want to be cut off from returning home either.

And to Ricardo's dismay, Jessica decided to speak out without asking permission. "The slide, I measure twenty-four meters horizontal with a seven meter drop. Whoever built this place, they picked a Pythagorean triple, 7, 24, and 25."

Ricardo stared at his slave, astonished she would make such a blunder, and with such useless facts too. But Jessica was staring at the slide lost in wonder, not even looking at him. Ricardo gripped his cane tightly for a moment, but then decided this was not the place to discipline her. Tonight though, back home, he would have to reintroduce her to the pain that misbehaving children deserved. Back home, yes, the decision was obvious. Ricardo would not willingly take a route that could not be retraced. He turned his group around and began retracing their path through the foamy hills. It would be a long and frustrating march back to their home hexagon, and they walked in silence.

Chapter 69.

Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 11 AM

It had been two hours since they had left the green tower and its gigantic slide, but time was the least of Ricardo's worries now. He and his group knew they were in trouble more than an hour ago. The worries began when their narrow path through the foam swung far into the northern wing of the crescent maze. They had not traveled this part of the crescent on their previous trip. The inescapable conclusion was that the path through the maze was dynamic. The consequences were frightening. What if their path turned into a closed loop? Would they be trapped in the foam forever?

For the moment, that particular fate did not seem likely. They were approaching the green tower again, and this time from the northwest and not the southwest as before. After another few minutes of walking, Ricardo and his people were again standing at the top of the fearsome parabolic slide.

Ricardo took a deep breath to calm himself as he considered his options. He was leaning towards jumping off the edge of the maze with everybody, but wanted to be sure he wasn't overlooking something before taking that irreversible slide.

Scenario A: They go down the slide and continue their exploration.

Scenario B: They try the path again, and this time hope it led back to the pink tower and home. If he had his choice, Ricardo wanted to return home. Should he try the path again?

Scenario C: They try the path again, and wander forever in closed loops until their supplies ran out and they died.

Scenario D: They try the path again, and come back to the green tower. Nothing lost except time. But then again, Ricardo considered time to be the universe's ultimate non-renewable resource. How valuable would the future show that lost time to be?

Was the possibility of Scenario B worth the risk of Scenarios C or D? Hell no! And yet, Ricardo was still reluctant to commit to the descent. Was there something he was overlooking? Hell yes! He turned and stared in the direction of the pink tower. Why not just walk through the foam? It looked yucky, but it felt like nothing.

Ricardo shivered as he considered the option. They would be walking blind, unable to see their footfalls. What would that be like, walking in shaving cream up to his waist? And what if the floor sloped down, and led deeper into the foam? Would it go over their necks? Jessica with her short height was already on the borderline. Could they breathe this stuff? It would make sense to test now while they had the chance. Otherwise, if they didn't know how to transverse the maze, what would be their motivation for coming back up here? Sliding down now without testing would be an admission that they would never return to their home hexagon.

Ricardo smiled. They would do some testing and keep their options open. But first, it was time to elevate Jenaro over Hernando again. The last thing Ricardo wanted was the two men to be friendly with each other and perhaps conspire against him. Almost by random choice, he had been picking on Hernando this morning. It was now time to give Jenaro's ego a little boost.

Ricardo turned to him. "Jenaro?"

The man nervously turned to him. "Yeah?"

"I want your opinion on something. Do you think we should take the slide or try the path again for home?"

"Uh…" Jenaro took a quick look at the path in back of them and shivered. The foam maze was scaring him greatly, and he was desperate to leave it. "Well, I would think the slide might be safer, and after all, we did come out here to explore."

"True enough compadre," Ricardo replied with a smile. "True enough."

Jenaro cracked a small smile and puffed up his chest a bit. "But I think I'd test a bit first."

"Test how?"

"Oh, something easy. Slide a backpack down the slide, just to see the slide in action." He saw Ricardo frown and added hastily. "Maybe not a whole backpack of course. Maybe something small that won't break."

Ricardo's frown had nothing to do with disapproving what Jenaro had suggested. He was annoyed with not thinking of such a simple test himself. Ricardo turned and barked an order to Hernando. "You heard him. Take off your backpack, find something heavy and release it down the slide."

Hernando tied to hide a quick sullen frown that Ricardo was delighted to see. Hernando rooted around for a moment and pulled out a flashlight and looked at Ricardo. Ricardo nodded his approval and then ordered Jessica to time the motion. Hernando placed the flashlight at the lip of the slide and let go.

They all inwardly groaned at the result of the experiment. The surface seemed to offer the flashlight no friction at all, and it picked up a frightening amount of speed in its seven-meter vertical drop and twenty-four meter horizontal slide. Although they had no way to quantify the number, they all saw the flashlight fire off the slide horizontally at grass level. Its actual terminal speed was in excess of forty kph. It acted like a stone skipping across a lake of grass. The flashlight bounced and tumbled and spun for many meters before finally coming to rest.

"Holy shit!" hissed Jenaro. Hernando felt like saying something too but he bit his tongue. He was sure any comment he made would be used by Ricardo to pick on him again.