The Stronghold

Riddle Me This...

Lying in bed that night I kept on moving about, restless and jumpy. I was thinking about the work I'd done that day, trying to puzzle it out.

After I'd been hit by a pillow for the thirtieth time I relented, forcing myself to stay still, rigid as a plank of wood.

"Right, talk," Georgina said, giving me a stern glare. "Otherwise you'll burst."

I sat bolt upright and started talking, explaining everything that had happened with wild hand gestures. Before I began it was 11PM. When I finished it was 1AM and Georgina could barely keep her eyes open.

"So it was Thunder who contacted you, then?" she murmured sleepily, angling her head slightly further towards me. I sighed and rested my head on the pillow, wrapping an arm around her.

"If that's all you gathered from my speech," I muttered, stifling a yawn, "then I give up."

"No, no," she replied, eyes flickering open for a single second. "I know that you didn't die."

"I'm giving up."

*

One month later...

"Now, you lot," I said, clapping my hands together. "This lesson, if I can call it that, is testing you in the field."

Chelsee raised her hand. "A literal field?"

"No, a field as in the battle ground, a specific field, that sort of thing."

"Eh?"

Geez, how did she get this far? She's stupid!

"If you don't understand it now there's no hope," I said. "Anyway, for you two intelligent people-"

"That's sexist,"Chelsee said immediately, dragging out her syllables like the Essex girl she was. "I'm telling my mum that. She'll tan ya."

"And I'll incinerate her in one of my many machines, what's your point?" I snapped.

Just let me reach out and give her neck a hug.

"OMG, I am soooo telling S about this," she said, marching out of the room. Watching her leave I felt a deep sense of satisfaction, a smug smile on my face.

"Sir, are we going to move now?" Tony asked, bouncing on his heels excitedly. I smiled at him kindly and nodded, moving not to the door but the window.

"Out you get," I said, lifting it open and nodding towards the concrete below. "There are riddles hidden all around this compound. Each riddle has three passcodes attached to three different answers. You can only input one passcode into the keypad before it locks you out. What keypads? you ask. The keypads attached to the boxes containing the next clue location. As you go you pick up a counter. The first person to make it back here with all the counters wins."

"Wins what?" Jake asked, arching a perfect eyebrow, a competitive glint in his eye.

"My congratulations and a sense of pride," was my response.

"What does this test, exactly?" Tony queried.

"Your skills of wit, intelligence and how you work under pressure."

"Is Chelsee coming back?"

"Who cares?" I shrugged. "Now, on three, two, one... Go!"

I sprang back from the window as the boys lunged forwards, scrambling for their exit. Jake was first out and sprinted away, Toby stumbling close behind. I laughed as I watched them go, both trying to be the first to get to the clue.