How High Can You Get?

Level Six: Double Cross

Level Six: Rembrandt Tower - Amsterdam.

150 Meters.

Jumpman and DK were hiding in bathroom stalls in the women's bathroom on the twenty-fifth floor of the Rembrandt building in Amsterdam. The Russian was dead and the pale fellow (whose name they never got) had been chasing them with a handgun and a cricket bat since the sixth floor.

This was the last level. All they had to do was reach the top to win it all and they were two thirds of the way there. Just thirteen more floors to go. But they were at the moment tucked away behind two toilets in total darkness as they listened for the pale fellow running and giggling down the hallway.

The day started simple enough. They were all awakened when the train stopped at their destination. Just the three of them. That was when they learned the news that the Russian would not be continuing. Ushered into the lobby of the Rembrandt building, the final three contestants were met by one of the Pleiades – the beautiful Afro-Caribbean one. She explained to them the rules to the final level.

Each of them were handed a clear bag filled with white powder and a 500 Euro note. The rules were simple. Simple make your way from the ground floor to the top floor. Thirty-eight flights. Once you reach a new story you must take a line of your powder. The amount was your choice, but the bag must be empty by the time you reach the final floor. And it cannot be finished any time before that.

"Two of your bags contain pure, uncut cocaine," the Pleiad told them. "And one contains bath salts."

No one knew which was which and the effects of the bath salts bag would be almost impossible to overcome for the unlucky contestant who received it. Things had been going fine until the fourth floor when the pale fellow started acting erratically and itching his body. He started mumbling on the fifth floor and snickering. And by the time they all took their lines on the sixth floor, that's when he pulled out his handgun and started firing at them.

Jumpman believed it was around the eighteenth floor that the pale fellow picked up the cricket bat from some office cubicle. And he had to admit that nothing in his life had been more difficult than running from a stark raving lunatic while still snorting uncut coke up his nose every five or so minutes.

It was DK's idea to hide in the bathroom to let the pale fellow get a few levels above them. He predicted that the sickly guy would either pass out from the exhaustion, get lost or eventually just blow his own brains out. And worst-case scenario if he still continued to head for the top floor, the two of them could sneak up behind him and knock him out before he got there.

So there the two friends sat. Resting against porcelain johns and whispering to each other.

"So," Jumpman said softly in an attempt to break the silence. "What did you see in your trip last night?"

"Me?" DK asked. "I don't think I want to talk about it."

"Oh, come on man!" Jumpman complained. "I'll tell you what I saw if you tell me what you saw."

There was silence for some time. Then DK finally spoke.

"Nothing," he said somberly.

"Nothing?" Jumpman exclaimed.

"Shh! Lower your voice man!"

Just then, the bathroom door burst open and the pale fellow flicked on the lights and giggled.

"Hello?" he asked through uncontrollable laughter. "Is anybody in here?"

The pale fellow banged on the wall a few times before turning the lights back off and departing back down the hallway outside. He still giggled.