The Road to Hell

Chapter 23

There was no way out and no way forward. José had been in the maze for three whole days, and had yet to come across Zeus's room. A frustrated howl rose to his lips as he came across a path he'd already travelled, marked as it was by a bright yellow line that his suit's HUD laid over his vision.

José knew that the maze couldn't be so large as to hold three people indefinitely. In fact, José was almost sure he'd explored nearly all of it. But he kept being turned around and walking in circles, because the maze didn't have fixed paths. He'd learned this the hard way when he tried retracing his steps to find the entrance only to run into a wall that hadn't been there before.

He looked and felt like shit. Not only did he have to deal with the shifting passageways, but the traps too. Everything from poison darts to electric wire was in play in those lightless halls, and José hadn't managed to escape from every encounter completely unscathed. A trip mine had damaged the exoskeleton on his leg beyond field repair, and now José limped along on one leg, relying on the walls to continue his hellish trek.

He chose a—hopefully—new direction and was eventually rewarded with an intersection with an unexplored option to his left. Slowly he made his way into the new area and a couple of turns later came to a dead end. He was about to turn around and revisit some of the branching paths when he noticed a lumpy black figure lying in the corner.

His heart plummeted into his stomach and he dropped to his knees. "Damn it!" Was it Pitter or Patter's wasted body lying here in the dark? José crawled forward to check. He looked into the man's face but it was completely disfigured due to severe chemical burns.

Before José left, he noticed that Peterson was holding his pocketpad, and it was connected to his suit's interface port. Intrigued, he disconnected the device and brought it out of sleep mode. After the minute or so it took for José to crack the security password, the machine logged in and a dialogue box popped up informing him that the file was ready for playback. José hit okay and a video began to play. It was clear that this was footage from the suit cam. The video was time stamped as having been recorded just over twelve hours ago. It also identified the suit's wearer as Pitter. At this point in the video, Pitter was suffering from the chemical burns he'd sustained to the left side of his face and torso, but like José he continued his journey.

Eventually, he grew too weak and tired; he hit a dead end and just collapsed. José knew this was the exact same spot he was now. Pitter had never moved from this position. However, the cam was still recording as Pitter dictated a log in a slurred, slushy voice that was laced with pain.

"Day two, hour sixteen, in Zeus's rat trap. I've lost all feeling in the left side of my face. I've hit another dead end, and I think I'm losing my fucking mind." José could definitely relate. "It's been clear for a while now that the maze's paths shift, but I'm starting to think they don't shift randomly." He was speaking slowly, making sure his words were easily understood. This was a message he hoped one of them would find. "I think there's surveillance here that can recognise unauthorized intruders and keep them trapped in here indefinitely. Chances are when Zeus needs to get back to his room the maze automatically provides a clear path for him to walk through. It's doing the opposite to us."

Pitter withdrew his pocketpad and brought up the tracking data his suit had created in order to trace his path through the maze. "As you can see, my path has been consistently blocked from going in this direction. Reaching this dead end confirms something for me, and I can only hope that it's either my brother or Lieutenant Ramius watching this right now, but I think I've figured out where Zeus's room is." José wanted to laugh, cry, shout, and die all at once. As soon as he'd seen Pitter's mapped path, he'd figured it out, if only he'd thought of it himself!