It's My Party

Cassidy had already clicked the left tumbler to D. She nodded and pushed the close button. Three seconds later her carriage door started to open into the small triangular transfer junction. She exited the carriage and stood in front of the slanting wall on her right as the door behind her closed. The room was plunged into blackness and total silence.

Cassidy reached out her hand and touched the wall before her and breathed a huge sigh of relief as the wall started to move. It was only a few seconds later that she was reporting from Ruthie's Kitchen. "Everything worked perfectly! And I'm blocking the trapdoor from closing… You were right Kiyoko. With the three-meter side open, the four-meter side stays closed. I'm removing the wedge now… And now the four-meter side opens. It's filled with food."

After all these months, Cassidy shook her head at how amazing this still seemed. She had hiked over an hour with her team from the Green Mall home complex. They had reached the building in the corner of the Green Mall surface area less than ten minutes ago. A quick walk through the trapdoor there took them half a planet away, and now Cassidy was back home again, or at least safe in the familiar mall. She hoped her friends would join her shortly.

Aggie gave Tom and Carla a quick hug each and then jumped next, reentering the junction room. Wedging her door open, Tom and Carla tried to follow her. A moment later Tom's voice spoke out on her Leophone. "Wow. You janitors were right Aggie. Carla and I are at the top of the pyramid again. When the exit link is blocked, the ring becomes unbroken. We're jumping X-5 again… Back at carriage 395 now."

Aggie acknowledged from the junction room and removed her wedge from the door. After it slid closed, she brushed her hand against the slanting wall on her left and felt it move. She was still in utter darkness though, so she reached to her harness and clicked on a light. "Wow," she said. "It's a standard elevator setup, full keyboard and everything. It's deactivated though. Pity."

Not expecting it to work but thinking there was no harm in trying, Aggie gave the verbal command for the elevator to activate. She then gasped as the system came to life. "My gosh, it worked! Emily, I'm going to initialize the elevator with a new transfer code." A moment later Aggie read out a twenty-character code. "Time for a test run, jumping to you now." After a brief reunion where Aggie stood in the doorway at the Hilton and waved at the mission control team, she returned to the Hilton elevator and jumped back to the transfer junction.

Aggie entered the triangular room and let the door close behind her. She then tried and failed to reopen the door by touching it. She then gave a verbal command override and smiled as the door obeyed her and opened. Better and better. Carla and Tom joined her next. Carla jumped to join Cassidy at Ruthie's Kitchen, and then Tom tried and failed to follow her. Aggie then verbally commanded the trapdoor to open. A moment later all four members were finishing their mission with a quick stroll to Esau's Bar & Grill.

Aggie was immensely pleased with the test results. In addition to securing a clear exit from the pyramid, she had also provided the Society a fast path to the hub area of the spiral mall, jumping from any elevator to the transfer junction and then taking the trapdoor to Ruthie's Kitchen in Green Mall. She also suspected that her next mission to the pyramid would not be nearly this easy.

The away-team walked quietly as they returned. Aggie decided to test her newly boosted abilities with memory recall. The details were unbelievable. You could put yourself back into a past reality. She had been practicing the previous week, glancing at a page in a book and then reading it with her eyes closed, reading the words directly from her visual memory.

There was one small oddity in yesterday's trip. She couldn't quite remember what, and the time since had been so busy, Aggie never had time to explore her thought. But she had a little time now. As her group crossed Hex Hall and took the Black Mall turn, Aggie allowed her walking to go on full automatic and her mind returned to her jumps. Near the end, she thought. Yes.

Ashley had just lost her bet. Aggie had reached the X series, her last possible group of codes to test. In her mind Aggie was back on the top floor. She watched her hands click to X-1 and jump, and yes! The next carriage room! Aggie saw a blank wall, nothing unusual there. But the smell! In the few seconds she was there, Aggie got a whiff of freshly cooked bacon.

Chapter 88.


Floor layout of the seventy-two hexagons of carriage zone 119 on the 20'th floor of the equatorial pyramid. Shown is the location of the transfer room (T) and the color codes show the room connectivity within the zone. You can move between any two adjacent hexagons if they are the same color. Otherwise, movement between hexagons is possible only at the locations indicated by arrows.

Chapter 89.

Time: Sunday, June 3, 2019 1:55 AM

With sunrise ten minutes away, the predawn twilight was providing very adequate light for Aggie's expedition. As the last of the nighttime stars became invisible, she suggested they all turn off their walking lights. Aggie was walking briskly, both from the coolness of the short night and with her eagerness to finally meet up with her lost party. She felt sure her team would be welcomed as the saviors of her lost group and that would be very gratifying.

Suvarna and Ann had joined the expedition, increasing its size to six, and today was the big day. Aggie breathed in deeply. Progress! And with such lovely weather. The overnight lows were still dipping below 15C and the afternoons peaking at about 25C. It was still a mystery how hot the summer would actually get, but for now it was beautiful springtime. So many flowers! Even the sand pathways were covered with strange flowering dune grasses. The world was alive and bursting with goodness and new life.

And it was also springtime in the Bee Park. Both environments, there and here on the surface, would share their summer solstices in another twelve days. And the fruit orchards and vegetable gardens of the Bee Park were growing food at such accelerated rates, yesterday Fatima authorized Team-6 to replace the graduating Team-4 (herself, Kiyoko and Husna) at the Bee Park. Heather, Whitney, and Amber were the newest candidates for the eight-day enhancement, and the plan was for the remaining three surface members of their society (Ashley, Akiko, and Alison) to join them on June 6th when Team-5 completed their stay.

The explorations were going well down Wobanakik, both with the group at Manhattan and at the entrance rooms. No hint of an exit had been found yet, but the people there were genuinely optimistic and even seemed content with their purpose of searching the great wilderness. Madison commented yesterday evening that the place really grew on her after a while.

And Mark and his group of developers were making steady progress with their balloon observatory project. They might deliver their first working model to Wobanakik in as little as one week. Supporting the Wobanakik search parties was considered the most immediate need. As more platforms were constructed, perhaps the Society would also try to survey the Black Mall surface area from the air. Diego, Jessica, and either Ricardo or Hernando were still alive, and so far the satellite flybys had revealed no clue to their whereabouts.

Whether the Society should search for them more actively was a frequent topic for the evening conferences. The common assumption was that if it did happen, searching for the lost members of Party #5 would not begin until late July or early August. It sounded like a long time to Aggie, until she reminded herself that late July was three weeks away.

Aggie's party reached the wedged-shaped building a few minutes after dawn. They entered without concern, even though the entrance would lock from the inside one minute after closing. Aggie was with them and she had the power to override the lock. And besides, none of them would be exiting the building through the entrance door.

The group of six entered the closet area of the trapdoor and a moment later were standing at the top of the equatorial pyramid. They momentarily left the carriage to allow it to reset and provide access to tumblers. Aggie set the controls to X-1 and the said to her teammates. "Remember the return code for X-1 is F-25." After receiving nods from everyone, Aggie punched the familiar close button with her finger. Six seconds later her team walked out into the transfer room of zone 669 on the 36th floor. Aggie called loudly, announcing her group's friendly intentions. And then they all waited and listened for a reply. Nothing. So it was time to start the search.

Time: 3:07 AM

The complete search took almost an hour, far longer than Aggie would have guessed. Including the transfer room, they now knew that zone 669 consisted of seventy-one hexagons, a complex weave of spiraling hexagons that required great diligence to search completely. At first Aggie had high hopes of finding at least some of her lost party here. There was a archway exit from the transfer room, at an offset of sixty degrees from the wall opposite the carriage entrance. And the adjacent room was a kitchen, a perfect match to Aggie's memory of the tasty smell of bacon. But after an hour of searching, the inescapable conclusion was that they were the zone's only occupants.

Aggie's group had stayed together as a group of six during their search, and Aggie was busily weighing the benefits and risks of dividing into two or three teams when they came to a zone. They were now back in the kitchen adjacent to the transfer room discussing their next move.

"There's every indication in the world that people were here," said Aggie, "and recently too. There's considerable drawdown of the food supplies in the kitchen and in several of the nearby pantries. And those four bedrooms in particular! We know a system reset by the servos will leave everything perfectly ordered. This entire zone has the feel of somebody's home, a whole group of somebodies. Recently too, if not now. I'm sure of it!"

"Should we wait around until they get back?" asked Suvarna.

"Yikes," answered Ann. "That might be an awful waste of time. What if they don't come back for weeks. Why not just leave them our note and move on?"

Carla piped up. "Aggie, I've been thinking about the fact that there were probably people here two days ago and they're not here now. Do you think they might have been scared off?"

Aggie turned to Carla with a puzzled frown. "What do you mean? Scared off by what?"

"Is it possible they saw you two days ago?"

"Huh? Well, I didn't do anything to frighten them. I know that."

"But could they have seen you, heard you, somehow know of your visit?"

"Hmmm…" Aggie paused for a moment to consider. "I don't think so. The carriage entrance is not visible from the kitchen archway, and I don't think I made any sound at all, nothing a human ear would pick up. And the carriage doors are absolutely silent."

"What about smell?" asked Ann. "You knew of them through smell."

Aggie frowned. "Oh hell, I don't know. I did take a shower that morning, but heck, I admit, I did come here after hours of nervous jumping." She wrinkled her nose. "I suppose it's possible they smelled me. I wouldn't think it likely though." She turned to Tom. "Can you smell me now?"

Tom gave her a big grin. "I'm the wrong person to ask."

A puzzled stare. "Why's that?"

"I kind of like the way you smell."

Aggie's eyes went wide, and then she realized Tom was teasing her. "Ah, men," she said in reply, shaking her head. "Such one-track minds…"

Tom continued his smile. "Seriously though, I think Ann is right. It's time to leave our handout and move on."

Carla frowned. The issue of the abandoned zone was bothering her but she couldn't think of anything additional to suggest.

Aggie polled everybody for their opinion. The vote was unanimous. They would move on. After leaving their handout in a prominent place on the kitchen counter, they returned to the transfer room and entered the carriage. Aggie clicked to A-1 on a whim, the unit jump size on the base ring. All zones were equally likely, she thought, the particular tumbler pattern didn't really matter. They would just keep jumping A-1 until they found somebody. Aggie pushed close and the search continue. Their carriage opened at base ring location 53, zone 519 on the 33rd floor. They exited the carriage and began searching the new zone.

Eight days later.

Time: Monday, June 11, 2019 6:00 PM GHT (Great Hexagon Time).

After bedding down for the night on the 29th floor, Aggie's team rose an hour before local sunrise and began their new day. By 6 PM GHT time, they were ready to head out to their next set of hexagons, location 229 on the base ring, zone 405 on the 31st floor.

They had learned much and found no one after a full week of searching. All base ring positions between nodes 52 and 228 had been searched, and the probing had been both complete and carefully done. Tom and especially Carla convinced Aggie to search assuming that the lost members of Party #4 might be hostile to their intrusion, so their search patterns incorporated numerous safety features. All six members of the search party would be in the same zone at all times. All six would keep an active Leophone connection to Hilton control.

As they became experienced in searching the zones, they did allow themselves to branch out into smaller groups, sometimes even solo excursions into nearby rooms. But they were never more than a room or two away from other members of the team. In the past week, they had honed their search skills and could thoroughly investigate a zone in less than thirty minutes, even the most complex of them.

Their model of the number of zones per floor was that each floor had the minimum number of zones possible such that the average number of rooms per zone stayed below 72, and then within each floor, the rooms were allocated as evenly as possible. Thus the 53 zones of the bottom (36th) floor all had 71 or 72 hexagons, the 42, 45, 48 and 51 zones of the 32nd to 35th floors had 70 to 71 hexagons each, and so on. They hadn't proven the design principle yet, but all the zones searched so far conformed to it.

And it was somewhat frustrating how complex a zone of 71 hexagons could be. Often the passages connecting rows of rooms were quite convoluted. The branching often seemed intentionally designed to drive you crazy. Aggie's team also noticed that the rooms were often but not always color coordinated, and that adjacent rooms with the same color code would always connect to each other.

The 36th floor was indeed the bottom floor, and it was special in another way too. It was the only floor with airlocks and exits to the outside. All the zones on the 36th floor with perimeter rooms allowed outside access, and return access too, and most of those had adjacent rooms packed with ski equipment and outdoor excursion gear, supporting the concept of the pyramid as a ski resort.

As their search skills evolved, Aggie's team had increased their search rate to thirty-plus zones per day. They were now beginning their eighth day searching base ring location 229. Twenty-four minutes later, they regrouped in the local transfer room and logged that the zone was vacant. The next jump of A-1 took them to base ring location 230, zone 119 on the 20th floor.

The elevator door opened opposite a wall and following their standard protocol, Aggie loudly announced their presence before her group exited the carriage. They walked counterclockwise through an arch and entered a living area. The color code of the room was a pale green, and their were two additional doors on their left. They searched the two new adjacent rooms. They were both pale green and connected to each other. One of the rooms also led to a room with a dark blue color code, while the other room led in a different direction to a continuation of the pale green pattern.

Aggie decided to split her forces. Carla and Cassidy would take the branch leading to the dark blue color code, while she and the others would continue with the pale green code. A moment later her group came to another branch. Tom and Ann took a fork to a pale blue path while Suvarna and Aggie continued the pale green trail.

The paths continued to bifurcate. Tom and Ann reported that the pale blue code continued in one direction and change to a yellow code in the other. He and Ann were splitting up and going solo. After eleven pale green hexagons from the transfer room, Aggie's path also split, the pale green path continuing and a yellow path branching off. Suvarna took yellow, Aggie continued alone of green.

How was all this safe? Each of the six explorers was in constant contact with the Hilton, describing the orientation of each move they made from room to room. The base team at Hilton control was building a visual map of the zone as the explorers reported in. They could direct the searchers to any location on a moment's notice as soon as something interesting was sighted.

Three rooms after walking the pale-green code, Aggie reported path took a turn sixty degrees to the right, and that the color code changed to a pale purple in the following room. Walking to the center of the small hexagon, Aggie reported her progress to the Hilton and her teammates and then suddenly had a very strange feeling.

Something was slamming into her shoulders and the back of her knees from behind. People! Before Aggie could say anything, she felt a knife at her throat. The blade felt serrated, and a voice whispered in her ear, "Silence! One bad move and I'll cut you deep. Understand?"

Aggie gave a tiny nod of her head, trying to show she would cooperate. Aggie felt a hand on her breast, groping her for a second before pulling her Leophone from her shoulder harness. Aggie heard the soft beep as the phone was powered off.

"Shit Cordelia!" a voice hissed. "Laura's got working phones!"

"We have to move now!" the voice at Aggie's ear hissed. "Samantha, hands behind your back! Now!"

It took Aggie a second to realize the woman kneeling cruelly on her back had just called her Samantha. Aggie snapped her hands to the small of her back, in between the knees that were causing her so much pain. She felt her wrists being bound, tightly but not in a needlessly cruel manner. Another hand entwined in her hair pulled up, and Aggie lifted her head slightly. It was only a few centimeters above the purple carpet but enough room for a large piece of tape to be laid across her mouth, and then a hood was slipped over her head and tied loosely around her neck. Aggie could still breathe through her nose but was completely blind.

"On your feet! Laura wants war? Laura's got war! Move!"

The knees left her back, and Aggie shuddered at the release of the heavy pressure on her kidneys. She allowed herself to be jerked upright, and then was hustled quickly away by her unknown assailants.

Meanwhile the Leophone bridge was alive with communications. "1 advance 5, 2 hold, 3 advance 3 and meet 4…" Emily was in charge and with Husna and Kiyoko was the team at the Hilton running mission support. They had a large display on the wall in front of them, and they were tracking a graphical representation of the away team's current zone and the location of all its members.