It's My Party

At the far vertex he saw the double spiral staircase described first by his group's early explorers and lastly by Amber and Whitney. But the door in the opposite spiral, it seemed open now. Diego felt an immense sense of relief. He was in grave danger of being trapped in a barren set of corridors. But it appeared his gamble might have paid off. Diego descended the stairs and considered the terrain.

It seemed simple enough, and regardless his only other option was to die of thirst once the eight liters of water he was carrying ran out. So after tracing the path before him with his eyes for a moment, Diego began to walk across the colored cobblestones, first yellow, then red, and finally black for the central crossing of the ivy.

Diego moved slowly and silently across the sharp black stones. His thick hiking boots made the journey possible, but he definitely did not was to lose his balance on the uneven rocks and then cut his hands on the sharp edges by falling. About halfway across the two-hundred meter distance, something wedged in the black cobblestones caught his eye. He stared closely and gulped. Could it be?!

It was a pistol, a Bersa, wedged between two rough cobblestones, almost invisible. Diego had been unbelievably fortunate to notice it. Intent in his examination, he did not notice the slight quiver of the ivy as he clicked the magazine in and out. Two shots fired, thirteen remaining. Not bad at all. Diego surveyed the area for another clip. He did spot several spent shell casings but no additional ammo. Still, this was an incredible find, thirteen rounds. Ricardo would have no reason to suspect Diego was armed. If they met in the future, Diego would probably have a decent opportunity to open fire before Ricardo realized the danger.

Diego examined the gun closely and noticed the faint N stamped into the black finish. Neto. Diego had Neto's gun. Diego took a deep breath and silently wondered, "What the hell happened to you man? Some sort of fire fight?" Well, it had been a long time ago. The hall with the lush ivy was vacant now. There were no answers here. Diego picked up his backpacks and continued his journey and after walking the high walkway along the side of the hall, he confirmed that he did indeed have access to the diamond complex interior.

He spent the next several hours wandering the hallways on the first floor. After an extensive amount of exploring, he counted ten interior doors he could enter. Should he? If so, which one? All ten of the doors had symbols in front of them, and two had a symbol he saw upstairs right before the entrance to the ivy room. It looked like a broken Y lying on its side. Maybe he should choose one of those.

But there was no guarantee the door would let him out once he entered. The only thing he knew for certain was that these interior areas did not appear to lead to the outside. If he was going to die, Diego wanted to be outside, in the light of day or at least under the stars. Dying alone in an alien room seemed a pathetic way to go. He would be like a hamster dying in a forgotten cage. So Diego passed on the option of entering an interior door and walked until he found a door leading out. He opened it and paused.

He was almost back home. He was exiting to the narrow hexagonal walkway around his home, and a few meters away was a door that led to a small vestibule and then to the first floor library. From this side, he knew that the door to the vestibule would not open. But there was nothing left for him behind. Diego let his exit door close, not even bothering to wedge it open. What would be the point? Instead he began the short journey to his home's southern vertex.

And there he was now, his watch reading 10:30 AM and yet another irreversible decision to make. But there was really no choice, and after patting the pistol hidden in his jacket pocket, he walked out and began heading for the pink tower about a kilometer to the south. Somehow he knew it might come to this, but at least now he was armed. A few seconds after leaving he heard the unbreakable door click shut behind him.

Time: Sunday, April 3, 2019 10:31 AM

Ricardo lay gasping for breath. He thought his body was about to have a violent vomiting convulsion, but incredibly instead he suffered a quick succession of hiccups, impossibly close together, one right after another. Ricardo had never heard of such a condition, and in his torment he vaguely wondered if he had been hit with some sort of airborne drug. Some sort of nerve gas?

What the hell had happened?! Jessica had escaped! She had run off just a moment ago. Ricardo knew he had to pursue her immediately if he had any chance to catch her in this crazy polygonal matrix, but for the moment he was physically incapable of standing. He made another wobbly attempt and then collapsed hiccupping back down to the floor.

He would have to rest and let his body recover. There was no choice. But what the hell had happened? Ricardo searched his memory, trying to arrange in linear order what seemed like a random series of gut-wrenching nightmares.

What had happened first? Jessica normally slept with her mouth closed. So when Ricardo pinched her nostrils shut, he had expected her to awake as she had so many times before in her training. She had learned that being submissive would earn her permission to breathe. But now…

Ricardo had been transported to a monstrous amusement center, nightmarish in the steepness of the slopes. They were at least a hundred meters above a lot of parked cars, and Ricardo was insanely sitting face to face with Jessica in some sort of rubber raft. Truly insane! And there was a vague form of another person between them, another girl Ricardo thought, a young child dressed in a girl's red swimsuit, but the child faded to nothingness as the dream progressed.

And then Jessica was in his mind, learning all his secrets. Or rather, there were two versions of Jessica, an adult Jessica and a child half her age. And to Ricardo's horror he found it was impossible to defend his mind against the two of them. He'd hammer the adult image and it would become dry and inert, and meanwhile the child Jessica would tear into his mind, into his memories, driven by a terrible anger at how Ricardo had abused her future self. The child's rage was overpowering, and Ricardo retreated into the core kernel of his self image, allowing the child to rampage through his memories and desires. The mental pain was unbearable. Unknown to Ricardo, for the first time in more than a decade, he was feeling the raw emotion of shame.

He struck back with hate, ordering the child to die, ordering her to kill herself. And he shocked the child with such vileness that he began to succeed. She tried to save herself, tried to flee the twisted pathways of his memories, and Ricardo began to play a deadly game of entrapment with her, thinking of her as a cockroach he would stomp on before she could flee.

The adult Jessica came to the child's rescue. She shielded the child image from his deadly mental foot and pushed Ricardo back into the dream, forcing him back onto the yellow raft above the parking lot. And they started to fall. The fear of death and desire for self preservation disoriented Ricardo and he lost his chance to crush the child image. And in the last part of the insane dream, just before impact, he sensed the adult and child images of Jessica strengthening each other, fusing with other and sharing all the secrets they had pulled from Ricardo's mind. Ricardo was howling with rage, and then his dream body slammed onto the top of a car.

That was it. The nightmarish shock broke the link between their two minds. Jessica stumbled from the room they were in, gasping and crying, and Ricardo had been too weak to follow.

But he was not too weak now. The hiccups were gone. He sat up and gently poked his diaphragm. It was a bit tender from the convulsions but no real harm done. And that stupid bitch had left him both backpacks. The fool! She could have killed him as he lay helpless. Ricardo swore she would never get such a chance again.

He got up without dizziness and stretched. His path was clear. Jessica must die. The bitch had somehow pried into his mind. Ricardo was horrified to think she understood how his mind worked. That was absolutely intolerable. There was no question what he had to do now, and she did not deserve a quick death either. A thin smile crossed Ricardo's lips. It had been years since he had allowed himself the pure unconstrained pleasure of torture. It would be very satisfying to indulge again.

He looked at his watch, and then looked again. Impossible! His mental war with Jessica had lasted for… Well, it was so surreal, it was difficult to estimate, but this?! His watch was saying only a few minutes had elapsed since he had pinched her nose. Impossible! Had Jessica somehow reset his watch while he had been helpless? But that would be absurd. Why not just kill him with a gun from the backpack? Ricardo stared at his watch again and finally gave up. The puzzle had no answer. He grimaced and turned in a circle, considering his seven choices.

He and Jessica had been exploring one level below ground level for almost a day now. They had found several water supplies on the ground floor, bathrooms in fact, but nothing to eat, and Ricardo's food supply now consisted of two small snack-size almond bars. Ricardo looked inside the open backpack. The bitch! She had stolen his almonds! Both bars! Fortunately the backpack with the guns was more firmly secured and still closed. Ricardo hefted its weight and gave a sigh of relief. Not that he had any intention of shooting Jessica. That would be too quick. He would kill her with his hands.

Ricardo was at one of the hub locations in the underground maze. It was an oddly shaped room, an underground gazebo, an octagon with four-meter sides and a four-meter ceiling. There were doors at the center of seven of the faces, and typically the hub doors opened onto long curving corridors typically forty to eighty meters in length and ending at another hub.

Over the last twenty-four hours, Ricardo had seen hubs that were triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons, and octagons. Hexagon hubs seemed to be the most common. Pentagons were very rare. They had only seen one, and it provided the entrance to this level. Each hub would a variable number of doors, but never more than one door per wall. Often a corridor would lead to a hub with a single door, a dead end. And as for the corridors, sometimes they were bare but more often there were side doors. Most were locked. Some were not and revealed small closet areas.

Without expecting much Ricardo took a quick peek through all seven doors, just in case Jessica had been stupid enough to drop something and show which direction she had taken. No such luck. Ricardo sighed. His search might take a while, but he was hopeful he would eventually catch her, and he indulged himself for a moment anticipating what that would be like. Then he picked up his gear, his cane and two backpacks, and unaware that he had given himself an erection.

Which door to take to pursue the bitch? It would make sense for Jessica to take the door they had arrived from earlier. All the other doors ran the risk of trapping Jessica by leading to a dead end hub. But their original door was on the opposite wall from where the backpacks had been. The key question was, how rational was Jessica when she fled from him?

After a moment of hesitation, Ricardo picked the door closest to the backpacks. Maybe he'd get lucky. He would try all the doors in the corridor and hope that Jessica was bagged in one of the many dead end hubs.

Chapter 74.

The underground museum maze. The green path is the route Ricardo and Jessica took to reach their octagonal rest stop. The red path is the direction Jessica took when she fled from Ricardo.


Chapter 75.

Time: Sunday, April 3, 2019 10:35 AM

"Lucky, lucky, lucky…" Jessica was unaware she was quietly whispering to herself as she worked. Jessica was frantic, guessing she didn't have enough time for what she was attempting to do, but determined nevertheless to try. The faint sound of her own voice went unnoticed as she worked furiously to repack the museum contents of her closet.

A museum, that was what she and Ricardo were in. She wondered if Ricardo realized it yet. Probably not. His objectives were ones of power and control, not to seek seemingly useless knowledge. But Jessica had recognized the nature of this strange and amazing maze yesterday. And with her childlike eagerness to please her father figure, she would gladly have shared her discovery with Ricardo. But he had ordered her not to speak. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

The tipoff had been the seemingly infinite variety in the clothing closets, starting back at the cluster of hexagons near their entrance pentagon. So many dimensions! The clothes of all humanity, arranged by era, culture, gender, and age in patterns that seemed just beyond her grasp. And the interconnecting rooms between the hallways of closets seemed to be markers for period transitions.

The current terminal hallway and the one before contained children's clothes, this corridor for girls and the previous one connecting to the octagon for boys. Jessica wasn't sure of the time period, but it certainly wasn't modern. She suspected pre-Columbian American.

What a museum! If her life were not in danger, it would be fascinating to examine the clothes, the different fabrics and styles and uses. There were sleep clothes, work clothes, and clothes that were obviously used for special ceremonies. The closet she was in now contained girls' jackets, Jessica guessed for five-year olds or perhaps older if the people were small. The jackets were made from animal skins. Most were plain, a few were exquisitely decorated. But for now the history being represented here was not her concern. Jessica was overstuffing the top shelves in the closet in order to clear out one of the larger drawers on the bottom level by the floor. The drawer was surprisingly deep, and Jessica's one hope was that she would be able to fit inside.

She had moment of pure panic and despair a few minutes ago. Her escape corridor had led to a triangular room with only one other door, and then in horror she found the following corridor led to a second and terminating triangle. She was trapped and had no illusions about being able to backtrack. By now, Ricardo had surely recovered from their strange interaction.

What the hell had happened? He had been in her mind! She was sure of it. And she had been trapped in his. It was a cesspool of hate and paranoia, and its filth had shattered all her illusions. And Ricardo knew! He knew his lies had been exposed. In his rage, he had screamed at her with his mind. He considered the little-girl self image of Jessica to be a witch, and he would not suffer the witch to live. Jessica witnessed the creation of her own death sentence in his mind. Ricardo was on the verge of executing the sentence when adult Jessica and child Jessica discovered how to unite their mental defenses. So close! And so much to think about, so much Jessica still did not understand. But there was no time for that now.

If Ricardo opened any of the top cabinets in this closet, he would see the disorder and know immediately that Jessica was nearby. But would he take the time to look? Jessica whimpered as she neared the completion of her work. If only! If only she had not gambled and picked an unknown branch of the maze! She could have headed back the way they had come, gone back and branched off after six to ten nodes, no, ten to twenty. How could she be so stupid?!

Deep within her mind, a child's voice answered, pleading with her not to berate herself. Ricardo had been lying near their original door to the octagon room. Jessica would have had to stop over him, and in a flashback the young child within her reminded the adult of the fear of a hand whipping out and grabbing her ankle as she attempted to pass. Ricardo's hands were incredibly strong. Jessica thought he would break her ankle if he got the chance. He would know exactly how to squeeze and shear the bone.

Should she have tried to kill him? The question didn't seem to have an easy answer. He had been helpless at the end of their mind merging, his body convulsing with dry heaves. Both the child and adult parts of Jessica's mind balked at murdering someone so helpless, even in an act of self defense.

There was so much mental integration work to do, and no time to do it. Jessica felt eighteen, two years before her actual age of twenty. And it was that persona that was running the show right now. The time felt like late summer in 2016. It was the month before she first met Allen, a man who eventually would transform into Alfonso.

There was a third voice within her mind, very quiet but not completely silent. The third voice represented the fractured persona of who Jessica had become while Alfonso's girlfriend, and unlike the two primary voices, Jessica #3 had no compunction about killing Ricardo.

It was something Jessica's mind would have to deal with, provided of course she survived the next few minutes. There was a general agreement among them that the three personas would merge. Even the child recognized that it was strength of Jessica #3's mind that had saved them from Ricardo's order to kill herself. The bad was needed and would have to be accepted and absorbed back into the good. What would the finished product look like? The child wasn't sure. The fixation of the two adult minds on sexuality was so foreign to her thoughts. But it was her great hope that the good would prevail.

There! The repacking was complete, and probably not a second too soon. Jessica climbed into the drawer and tried to arrange her body so that she could close herself in. It wasn't easy. Knees to chest, shoulders hunched in, it was only the surprising depth of the bottom layer of drawers that was making this remotely possible. But the child Jessica approved of that. The remoteness would keep their escape route off of Ricardo's radar scope.

There would be very little air inside the drawer. The closet itself was well ventilated, air ducts at the ceiling blowing down to intake vents at floor level. But inside the drawer, how quickly would the air run out? It would be a dangerous hideout. If she passed out from CO2 buildup, she would die. She would have to test and learn the limits of her hideaway, conserve the air as much as possible and then open the drawer and get a fresh supply of air at periodic intervals.

What would the confinement times be like? Perhaps five minutes with the drawer closed, hopefully longer, and then perhaps a five-second opening to clear the stale air and recharge. With luck, Ricardo would not be in the closet during the short exchange. The odds seemed decent, and regardless, they were all she had. Jessica took several deep breaths in the clean fresh air of the closet and slid herself in by pushing against the surface above her. The drawer sealed with a faint snap and hiss. Forty seconds later, the door to the closet opened.

One hour later.

Time: Sunday, April 3, 2019 11:39 AM

Aggie stretched her arms, her mind already working on how she would present her proposal during her noontime report. Aggie glanced at her team.

Heather smiled back. "I've talked this over with Ann and Allison. We think we know what you're going to do. We're quite willing to come along."