Fortnite: Island

Chapter 11: Picture Perfect

  Drift's cabinet contained a pen, a piece of paper, a screen showing Tek's paper, a strip of unlit LEDs and six bland, white buttons. Drift wondered if Tek would be able to discern his awful drawings or not. He felt stressed, because he would be determining Tek's fate as well as his own, but he knew he wasn't going to have to go through it alone. Rox stood beside him.
  "There's six lights, three on either side. I bet you have to get three drawings correct to pass." Rox suggested.
  "That feels right." Drift gulped.
  "Tek doesn't have a pen, so Karve will be going first." CRZ-8 shouted around the barrier.
  Suddenly, the LEDs lit up to form a word: sandwich. Drift would've laughed if he wasn't playing for his life, but that wasn't the case. He first drew a triangle, which was simple to do. To Drift and Rox, this was obviously bread, but to Tek and CRZ-8, it could be anything.
  "How do I make it more sandwich-like?" Drift asked.
  "I don't know, add lettace or a crust to the bread or something." Rox panicked.
  Drift started to draw a wiggly line coming out of the bread to represent the lettace, and then tried his best to make a crust. Before Drift could stress or draw any more, there was a ding, and the first light turned green.
  "Wow, ok." Drift breathed.
  "Hey, a chute opened. I think you should put your pen in there." Rox pointed.
  Drift did, and the pen was gone. The six buttons that had been blank before now showed six words: orange, balloon, cabbage, eraser, tennis and eye. Drift was confused and he looked to Rox for advice, but she just shrugged.
  And then it clicked. The answer was going to be one of the six buttons. He then made the connection that all of the objects also began as circles. At first, he would not be able to tell what the answer would be. Tek began to draw that circle.
  "Ball! Face! Plate?" Rox called.
  "I think the answer is going to be one of those words." Drift explained.
  "Oh, ok." Rox laughed, "I can't really tell what it is."
  "Me neither."
  Tek had added shading to his drawing. This meant that it wasn't going to be a cabbage or a balloon, since they were more than just a circle. He would've drawn those bits next. Drift felt like he was making progress; for him and for Tek.
  "Is that shading or something else?" Rox asked.
  "What do you mean by something else?" Drift questioned.
  "It could be pencil marks, which would make it the eraser." Rox pondered.
  "...Should I try it?" Drift gulped.
  "Just do it."
  "Yeah, I've got three mistakes to use. It'll be fine."
  Drift held his breath as he tapped the eraser button. At first, he was relieved when he heard the ding. But that relief washed away when a red light blinked on. He scrutinized it, he even removed his glasses to check if they were having an effect.
  "Oh no." Rox sighed.
  Drift's heart sped up, "What?"
  "I don't think you're a team." Rox cried, "You're competing."
  Drift's heart dropped. He felt sick. He'd have to kill to do his job, or die and let his friends and the Seven down. The moral battle made his head ache, and he slumped down against the wall. Tears sprung to his eyes, and it made it hard for him to see.
  "You're going to have to decide if you want to win this game or not quickly, because you only have three and a half minutes left." Rox reminded him of the timer.
  "I'm going to play it fair." Drift decided.
  "What do you mean by that?" Rox asked.
  "I mean, if I win, I win, but if I don't, I don't, and that'll be that." Drift explained.
  "Oh. I hope Tek plays fair too, but I'm sure he'll want to see his sister again." Rox prayed.
  Drift sobbed quietly, "Well, if he wants to do that, he'll have to press some good buttons."
  The next item that came up was a bobble hat. Drift drew a semicircle for the actual hat bit, and then he added the bobble on top. He was aware that he was terrified, and that his hand was a bit shaky. Anyone who didn't know that it was a bobble hat would never be able to guess it. And then he remembered that Tek didn't know!
  He went to scribble out the drawing, but he was too late. There was the beeping noise, but the lights didn't change, further cementing their theory. But Tek had gotten the answer wrong. Drift sighed as he put the pen in the chute.
  The new words were: house, ice cream, wafer, sign, door and phone. The first thing Tek drew was a triangle, which ruled out the wafer, the phone and probably also the door button too. But some people had fancy doors where triangles could be found.
  Tek then drew two long, thin rectangles that went all of the way down to the bottom of the page. After about five seconds of thinking, he came to a final conclusion.
  "What do you think about it being the sign?" Drift gulped.
  "Go for it." Rox nodded.
  And he pressed it, and then there were two red lights. Drift was probably going to win. A small part of him didn't want to win, but he didn't know Tek well enough to let him live. He knew the Scientist better, and the Scientist needed Drift to do this.
  It was Drift's turn to draw. His word was pickle. Drift would've laughed once again at this on a normal day, but he more felt like crying, so he remained silent. He started to draw an oval, and then, one by one, added the warts that distinguished a pickle from a cucumber in cartoons and comics.
  "Come on, Tek." Drift breathed.
  Two green lights shone from the cabinet. And two red ones. The next round could decide the fate of the pair's lives. One would live and one would die. And Drift hated that more than anyone else in the room.
  It was now Tek's turn to draw. Drift was surprised to see that the buttons had names of countries on them. Panama, Palau, Morocco, Israel, Guyana and Fiji. The randomest countries ever - how would he know these?
  "What the hell?" Rox grumbled, "CRZ-8! What is this?!"
  "I don't know." CRZ-8 shouted, "Would you be better with flags or country shapes?"
  "I don't know country shapes." Drift answered.
  Tek didn't say anything, but instead began to write words. Specifically:
  Please let me win. I have to see my sister again.
  "Don't say that." Drift grumbled.
  "See, he's not playing fair. Guilt." Rox shouted, "I told you."
  "EVERYONE SHUT UP!" Drift shrieked.
  Silence. There we go. A breather. A moment to think. Drift thought for a long time. There had always been talking in this room, so Drift hadn't heard the beeping of the timer before. It was consistent. And, as Drift slowly began to realise, it could be their way out.
  "Let the timer run down." Drift requested, "How long is left?"
  "A minute." Rox said.
  "I say we give it a go." Drift nodded.
  "But you might both die." CRZ-8 replied.
  "It's the only chance we've got." Tek gulped, "And I trust you, Drift. I trust that you have my best interests in mind."
  Drift nodded and stared at the clock. There were only thirty seconds left, that would design the end of his life. Or, well, at least begin to. Drift walked up to Tek and put a hand on his shoulder.
  "You're going to see your sister again." he smiled.
  "Hopefully." Tek grimaced.
  "No, you will. I believe that."
  "Ok. I'll believe it too."
  10.
  "I really hope this works." Rox cried.
  9.
  "It will." Drift replied.
  8.
  "But what if it doesn't?"
  7.
  "Then we both die, but we don't want to kill each other." Drift shrugged.
  6.
  "Yeah, it works out." Tek nodded.
  5.
  "I'm beginning to regret my decision of joining this place." CRZ-8 grumbled.
  4.
  "I think we all do, a little." Rox sighed.
  3. If this went well, then Drift would have no regrets of joining IO. He'd be able to complete the Seven's mission then, if things went well. 2. The clock began to beep faster, and everyone went silent. Drift held his breath and crossed his fingers for good luck. 1. This hadn't been a good idea, had it?
  And then, the door opened. There were no gunshots, only loud breathing. CRZ-8 snapped his fingers and walked on over in front of the others so that they could all see him.
  "This was a challenge of patience!" CRZ-8 exclaimed, "If we had just let the timer run down, then we would've all been let free."
  Someone walked into the room, "It's a good thing you didn't win that game, either of you, or you would've all been fired, and one of you would be dead!"
  "Sis!" Tek cheered.
  "Ah, it's good to see you, brother." Tek's sister smiled.
  She wore similar clothes to Tek, and had the same white hair, but she had darker skin. But Tek was adopted, so this made sense. Drift felt warm inside, that he had managed to save Tek. This conversation would've been very different if he hadn't made it.
  "Right, you lot, follow the guards. They'll escort you to your rooms." Tek's sister continued.
  "I'm going with you, right, Terra?" Tek asked.
  "Of course. Until we meet again, agents, good luck."
  And then Terra and Tek turned and left. Drift, Rox and CRZ-8 stood alone. Like himself, Drift was sure that the other two new agents were thinking about how they could've saved Polar Peely.

To be continued...