James Rumpel

 A science fiction short story about a bunch of teenagers, set in a mall no less. Yawn. But I think you will find that Escape Room is more than it appears to be. It's certainly more than it appears to be to the teenagers in question. Maybe video game arcades weren't the answer after all. Maybe we should have given real-life, role-playing escape rooms a shot.

Escape Room

By James Rumpel

Prologue

Somewhere in space, the galaxy's most heinous villain and his henchmen are held in the universe's most secure prison. Their bodies are trapped in cryogenic suspension, and their minds entombed within the circuitry of a computer. Only one means of escape is possible.

###

Oaktree Mall, per usual, was bustling with activity. Young children raced down the wide corridors; their parents huffing and puffing to keep up. Teenagers loitered in nearly every store; their common goal to spend time but not money. Wives walked at a brisk pace from store to store while husbands, their arms burdened with oversized shopping bags, followed like blue jean-clad Sherpas.

One particular group of teenagers moved through the bustle with a purpose. Joe Steward and his friends had an appointment.

“It’s almost seven. We’re not gonna make it,” he announced for the fifth or sixth time, while sidestepping a random toddler.

“It’s okay if we’re a few minutes late,” said Anna Zevenson.

Joe slowed his pace and nodded. “I guess. I just don’t want to lose our turn. It was hard getting a time.” He held back from commenting any further. He liked Anna. She was cute, nice, and fun to be around. If this unofficial date went well, he would ask her out again.

“You have to forgive Joe,” said Tim Husby, Joe’s best friend. “If you haven’t noticed, he’s a nerd.” Tim winked at his girlfriend, Heather.

“I might be a nerd, but I’m cute,” said Joe.

Anna giggled. “As far as nerds go, you’re within a standard deviation of the mean amount of cuteness.” She laughed even more at her own joke. Her perfect teeth flashed in an innocent smile.

“There’s the Escape Room,” called Joe, pointing ahead. He motioned for his friends to follow him.

Anna stopped and tilted her head to one side, directing everyone’s attention toward a car being displayed to promote an upcoming raffle. “Um. let’s go around the car. That guy over there creeps me out.”

Joe had to agree. Blocking their most direct route was a strange-looking man in his mid-thirties. He wore a rumpled suit coat and was missing a shoe. His face was dirty and unshaven. What stuck out the most, however, were his eyes. Wide-open and rarely blinking, they darted about the mall as if looking for something, perhaps his next victim.

Suddenly the man shouted, “Bormid, where are you? I am free and waiting for my orders. Bormid!”

“Yeah, I think that’s a really good idea,” agreed Heather. She pulled Tim to the left and the group gave the weird man a wide berth as they headed to the Escape Room’s lobby.

###

The escape room had moved into the mall only recently. The minimal space of the storefront consisted of a waiting area, a concession stand, and a small sales counter.

The man behind the counter greeted Joe and his three friends with a practiced smile. “Welcome to Under Lock and Key, Arizona’s best escape room. How may I help you?”

Since the evening had been Joe’s idea, he took the lead. “We have the seven o’clock appointment for the Outer Space Room.”

“Ahhh, yes. That’s our most difficult room. Hardly anyone has figured it out. It’s been up and running for three weeks, and the team that just finished is only the second to make it out in time.”

“We’ll get out,” said Joe. He would impress Anna with his intelligence and problem-solving skills.

The attendant’s smile grew even larger. “Well, it’s good to see you’re confident.”

“What makes it so hard?” asked Tim.

“I’m not going to give away any hints. I can tell you that it’s the first room we’ve had set up by a company from New Mexico. They came here and put everything together.”

“Can we get started?” asked Joe.

“Not quite yet,” replied the man behind the counter. “We’ll let you know when the room is ready. The last group just finished, and we need a few minutes to reset the room.” He gestured to a group of five people standing in front of a background screen where a red-vested, escape room employee was busy snapping a photograph. “That’s them getting their victory picture taken. Don’t ask them for any clues.”

The five members of the team wore identical gold jackets, emblazoned with the logo of a realty company. They must have been doing some sort of team-building activity. Joe noticed that one of the realtors was acting odd. She was an older lady; her face adorned with overabundant make-up. While the rest of the team laughed and celebrated their victory, she stood expressionless and silent. She jerked her head rapidly from side to side searching her surroundings. Maybe she had lost something or was upset about her role in the escape. Still, Joe found her behavior slightly disturbing.

Joe felt a tap him on the shoulder. “I guess we didn’t have to sprint through the mall after all,” said Tim. His grin made it clear that he was, once again, giving Joe a playful hard time.

Joe shrugged. “It’ll be worth the wait.” He walked over to Anna, who was looking at some pictures hanging on the “Wall of Fame.”

Dozens of photos were on display. They featured all the teams that had successfully escaped rooms in the last month. Most of the pictures featured smiling families or groups of friends. One particular picture drew Joe’s attention. A notecard was taped to the bottom of this photograph. Written on the card was a message saying the team featured was the first to successfully escape Space Prison. Four teenage boys were smiling and holding up their fingers, proclaiming themselves as number one. Behind them stood a stoic gentleman wearing a suitcoat. There was something familiar about that man. Was he the same man they had avoided outside?

Anna made a loud sighing sound. “How much longer do we have to wait?” she asked.

Joe was about to answer when he was interrupted by a commotion in the hall.

“Barb, where are you going?” shouted one of the men from the realtor group. “My cars in the front parking lot. Barb, come back here.” He headed down the hall, leaving his three other teammates standing in a state of confusion. “Barb, what’s going on?”

The woman ignored his questions and walked away. She yelled out a single word, “Bormid.”

Joe was going to point out the fact that the wild-man had shouted the same thing, but he was interrupted again. This time by a college age girl wearing a red vest.

“Steward group of four, your room is ready. Come with me.”

The friends followed the girl to one of three doorways in the back of the lobby. Once everyone gathered around her, she took a deep breath and began her speech.

“You are a group of space adventures,” she began in an annoyingly monotone voice. “Having been wrongly accused of a crime, you know you can prove your innocence. To do so, however, you must find a way off of the prison satellite in which you are currently being held. You have managed to make your way into the prison’s command center. You must find and enter the correct codes to open the doors and escape. The guards will be back and find you very soon. You only have forty-five minutes. Good luck.”

With that, she opened the door and gestured for the team to enter. Once all four were inside, the girl announced, “Your time begins now,” and closed the door.

Joe marveled at the room before him. The entire fifteen-foot by fifteen-foot chamber was filled with all sorts of futuristic paraphernalia. One wall was covered by an amazingly lifelike computer. Flashing lights, spinning dials, and blinking monitors all begged for his attention. The wall opposite the computer held a pair of large shelves with an assortment of boxes and space suits. Directly in front of Joe was the most amazing of the sights. A large screen displayed a view of outer space. About half of it was filled by the image of a brown and yellow planet. The rest of the screen held images of far-off star clusters.

Anna was the first to speak. “So, what are we supposed to do?”

Tim pointed to the wall behind them. “It looks like we need to find the codes to enter into there.” Next to the door was a panel that featured three digital displays and a numeric keyboard. Each of the displays had a symbol in front of it. The symbols were a star, a diamond, and some odd shape that looked like a coiled snake.

Hanging from the ceiling, next to the panel, was a long, thick wire. Attached to the end of the wire was a futuristic looking helmet. Written on the helmet was a secret message. It read: VCYDJR ICRBCU BYHU WC ESDV EICV CVUCDPVZ DCRCJHC KSXCH.

“Oh, that’s one of those code puzzles,” said Anna. “The letters have been changed. You just have to figure out which letter is which. I can do this.” She grabbed a stack of scratch paper and pen, which had been conveniently left for them.

“Great,” said Joe. “Heather and Tim, you look on the shelves for clues. They’ll be in pockets or in puzzle boxes. Find as many as you can. I’ll see what I can figure out about the computer and space picture. There must be all sorts of clues on those.”

“Yes, Sir,” snapped Tim, saluting as he did so.

It wasn’t long before Joe located some alien writing on the frame of the view screen. The message consisted of four sets of three symbols followed by an arrow pointing to the left. One of the symbols matched the odd, snake-shaped character on the panel by the door.

“See if you can find any clues about these symbols. They’ve got to mean something,” called out Joe.

For the next twenty minutes, the team collected clues. Anna was on the verge of giving up on her decoding mission when Heather found a message on the shoulder patch of a spacesuit. It read: IC is HE. With the aid of the new information, she dove into her task with renewed vigor.

While Joe examined the computer, he found himself thinking about the two weird people they had seen that evening. They had both shouted, “Bormid.” Who or what were they talking about? They had both been members of teams that had successfully gotten out of this room. Could the room have done something to them?

Joe dismissed the thought. It’s just a game. How could a game be changing people? He set the thoughts aside and continued pushing buttons. He had more important things to do; he had to impress Anna.

One of the buttons caused the computer to make a whirring sound. Joe smiled as he watched a slot, similar to a DVD input tray, open and reveal a note.

He showed it to his friends. “It says Orion plus Big Dipper and then it has the word Lyra offset above Dipper.”

“That’s stupid,” commented Heather.

“No, it isn’t.” Joe pointed to the space scene on the viewing screen.  In the background, the constellations Orion and The Big Dipper were visible. “Look, Orion has seven stars that are a lot brighter than the others. The Big Dipper has eight. I’m not sure what Lyra is, but there is only one more constellation in the picture and it has five bright stars.”

“It’s a math equation?” asked Tim.

“I bet the note means one of the codes is seven plus eight to the fifth power.” Joe smiled proudly. That type of problem-solving skill should impress Anna.

Tim grabbed a sheet of paper. “So, I just have to take fifteen to the fifth power?”

“No,” answered Joe, smugly. “You have to take seven plus eight to the fifth power. Don’t you remember the rules of order from algebra?”

“I guess not. Good thing we have you here.” Joe didn’t have to be an expert problem solver to catch the sarcasm in Tim’s comment.

“I bet that code goes in the digital display by the star,” proclaimed Anna.

“Oh, I think you’re right,” said Joe. “Great job, Anna.”

“That’s nice and all,” said Heather. “but we still have two more to figure out, and we don’t have much time.”

The team continued searching. After a few minutes, Tim held up a black-light flashlight, he had gotten out of a puzzle box. “Well, I guess I’m not useless after all.”

“Good job, Tim.” Joe was eager to make up for his earlier condescending attitude.

Before long, Tim used the light to find a message scrawled on the wall. Eight strange symbols were each assigned a letter.

“Those are the symbols Joe found by the screen.”

“You’re right, Heather. What do we get if we change the symbols to the letters?” Joe was going to make sure Anna saw how good of a leader he was.

“It spells out ‘ATE WON TOO FOR’.”

“I bet we put the numbers that sound like those words into the display with the snake symbol in front of it.” Tim was no longer brooding. He was starting to get excited about the puzzles.

“Yes, but what about the arrow after the symbols. Do you think we have to type the numbers in backward?”

“Anna, you’re a genius.” Joe looked around the room. “We’ve got one more to figure out.”

Tim glanced at his watch. “I think we have about fifteen minutes.”

“The final clue has to be that blinking red light on the computer.” Joe had noticed the light early on, but had not been able to solve its mystery. “There’s a pattern. Two quick flashes, one flash, a pause, two more quick flashes, a pause, and one final flash. It then stops for a minute and starts again.”

“Maybe the last code is 210201,” suggested Heather.

“That seems too easy,” replied Joe.

“Well, the only other thing that might be a clue I found is this baseball card,” added Tim. “Why would there be a baseball card in a space prison control room? It’s a Brooks Robinson card. Whoever that is.”

“Let me see.” Joe took the card. “I don’t see any sort of hidden message.” He was about to give it back to Tim when his face lit up.

“Look at the bottom of the card where it says the position Robinson plays.”

“It just says Base Three.”

“It should be Third Base.” Joe waited to see if the realization hit any of his friends. “It means that the numbers are in base three. We have to convert them to normal numbers.”

“Who knows how to do that?” asked Heather.

“I’m sure Joe can,” answered Anna. Joe was certain he detected a good deal of respect in her comment.

“I’ll get it,” he said, grabbing a paper and pen. “It comes out to 586. It must go in the display with the diamond. Get it? Baseball diamond.”

“So, we have them all?” asked Tim.

“Yeah, we just need to type them in.” As Joe spoke, he thought again about the crazy people they had seen. Should he tell his friends his theory? They’d think he was crazy. Besides, he had done very well at impressing Anna. He didn’t want to ruin everything by coming up with some stupid story about the room changing people.

“Just wait,” called Anna. “don’t forget about the code I’ve been working on. I think I’ve got it. It says that the neural helmet must be worn when entering release codes.”

“Great job,” said Heather.

“That’s weird,” said Joe. “Why would you have to wear a neural helmet to type in release codes. It has nothing to do with opening a door.”

“Who cares?” responded Tim. “It’s just part of the game, something else we had to figure out.”

“I guess. It doesn’t make sense, though.”

Anna slid the helmet onto her head, and it immediately began blinking. “It tickles,” she said as she began entering the numbers into the first display.

Joe found himself feeling uncomfortable. Why would the helmet be anything more than a lifeless prop? Had the man and woman been the ones to type in the codes for their teams? Did the helmet do something to them?

He looked at Anna. She was about to type in the final set of digits. He couldn’t let her be affected.

“No, wait, let me.” He lunged forward and pulled the helmet, along with a few strands of hair, from her head.

“Ouch! What are you doing?” she shouted.

“I want to put in the last code,” he announced, ignoring the glares from his three companions.

Without donning the helmet, Joe quickly typed in four random numbers.

The display blinked red and went blank. An automated voice came from the computer. “INCORRECT CODES. YOU HAVE FAILED. CODES MAY NOT BE REENTERED FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES.”

“Thanks a lot,” huffed Anna

###

A week later, Joe was back at the mall. This time he was alone. He assumed he would be alone quite often for the foreseeable future. Tim was still upset with him. Anna had let him know, in no uncertain terms, that his behavior was rude and that she had no interest in ever going out with him. He couldn’t bring himself to explain his actions. He would have sounded crazy.

Resigned to a lonely existence, he had decided that a trip to the mall for a new video game might help him pass the time until Tim forgave him. With the newly purchased game in hand, he was headed toward the front door when he decided to take a quick look at the escape room.

He was not at all surprised to see two unkempt adults standing outside of the Under Lock and Key entrance. One was a bearded man in a wrinkled jacket. The other was an older woman with smeared and faded makeup. She wore a stained, gold blazer. They both were constantly looking around with wild eyes. They seemed to be waiting for someone or something.

“Bormid. We’ve escaped. Where are you?”

THE END

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