Chapter 8: The World's Largest, Most Annoying Game of Sudoku
Richie
"Hey! You! Help me please! Did Headmistress give you any directions for me?" I asked as I walked as quickly as I could towards them, which wasn't very fast, in fact I felt like a sloth. They had no reply not even a slight movement. Either they were well trained soldiers, or they were robots. As I got closer, I could tell something was wrong. "Hello?", I asked as I looked them up and down. In desperation, I ripped off their coats, easier than I thought I would, to reveal a metal skeleton. "I knew it," I whispered to myself. Now I had to find another way out. I perused the room, looking for any exit or hidden door. The bed, the technical examination machines, the locked windows and doors, and an old dresser with some knick knacks on it; there was no escape. "Maybe the robots could help me though." I thought. If I could rewire it to find an exit for me, that would be wonderful. Wait, I don't know how to rewire these though! If only Zach was here, he could help. Headmistress's voice echoed in my head, "The best spies don't rely on their gadgets." Suddenly I knew exactly what to do. Who keeps a dresser in a hospital? Slowly making my way towards the dresser, I examined every side, the drawers, and the wall. If I were a spy academy, what would I use to hide and open a secret passageway? The knick-knacks. They weren't mine, so maybe they were the Academy's. But what academy keeps knick knacks? I stared at the multiple children's figurines. Little superheroes, Ninja Turtles, and several ditsy toys that looks like the cheap plastic ads from Burger King, all with no secret button of lever to open some type of hidden door. I was so engrossed in finding this stupid door, I didn't even notice the robotic guards boot up sounds. Not until I saw one move out of the corner of my eye did I notice that they were being reactivated. "Is this part of the dumb test too?!" I yelled, knowing Headmistress could hear me. Before the one closest to me even activated, I grabbed a small figuring of Hawkeye off the shelf and used the end of his bow as a spear and jabbed it into the center of his chest. I quickly spun, throwing my foot with all the force possible, to smash his head against the wall with the roundhouse kick I'd been practicing for weeks. Just as I regained by bearings, I felt a sharp object jab into the side of my hip. the robot stood there with a small steel rod jutting out of its hand like Wolverine. I kicked it away and removed the steel rod. It didn't go to deep and surprisingly, didn't hurt. I knew the pill would heal my wounds but did it help me heal past that? I charged towards to robot, pelting it with the toys and tools around me. Captain America, iron Man, and several sharp needles from the doctor tray all broke against the robot or stuck in the small openings of its exoskeleton. I grabbed a framed picture off the wall, smashed it over the robot's head where it stuck around its wiry neck, and spun it. The robot's head flew off, spinning into the air and landing cleanly onto the floor in front of its body. I laughed as I thought of the old fighting game I used to play on my Xbox, "Fatality", I whispered to myself and walked back towards the dresser.
There was nothing that I could see to open a hidden door. I stomped around the room frustrated, trying to think. Nothing I could see! That's it! I slid down onto my knees and ducked and tried to see below the small crack between the desk and the floor. I could just see a small stick stuck between the crack. I quickly got to my feet and tried to flip the shelf but it wouldn't budge; it must have been bolted to the floor or something. I looked around the room, trying to find something small and slender to reach the lever below the desk, but everything I could've used was now sticking out of the robots. Maybe I could yank one of the sharp needles out of one of the robots. I began to walk over to the robot that I had barraged with the toys and utensils. Just as I reached the robot, it began to beep. Normally, beeping would mean it needed to charge, but as a spy, beeping could only mean one thing; a bomb. "Are you kidding me?!" I yelled as I ran for cover. I quickly jumped over the bed, kicking out with my leg, knocking the bed over. Just as I landed on the floor, the robot exploded throwing shrapnel and toys everywhere. I peered over the bed where a black scorch mark now blackened the wall where the robot previously laid. "Well that went from zero to a hundred real fast." Just as I threw one foot over the bed, the second robot began to beep as well. " Goddammit!" I yelled as I threw myself back over the bed, just in time before the second robot exploded as well, leaving a second scorch mark on the other wall. If those windows weren't barricaded, they would've surely broken, and even as a spy, I hate being stabbed in the back, especially by shattered glass. I peered over the toppled bed again, half expecting the doors to open and an army of mechanical fiends to attack me. After a minute of it being completely clear, I hopped over the bed and sprinted to the dresser once more. I careful made my way around the room, scrutinizing every nook and cranny for anything long and slender to shove under the desk and flick the switch. Aggravated, I stormed around them room, pushing over equipment and punching the wall. On my third punch, the wall gave out revealing a silvery stick which was probably part of the building's infrastructure. "That's it!" I whispered to myself. I put my hand on the wall nearby the newly made holes, carefully feeling for a hollow spot to easily punch through. But there were no more, only the hole the size of my fist. That silver rod was how I could get out of here, but there was no way to get it, I wasn't as strong as Jenna, I couldn't devise a plan to find the quickest escape route like Mitchell, I couldn't even use the wires and parts from the robots to build some crazy mechanical contraption like Zach. Even Brianna has probably read about the building and has some way to know where this secret door is. But that was exactly it, I'm not super strong Jenna, or tactical Mitchell, or tech savvy Zach, I'm Richie, smart, creative, and able to overcome any problem like a puzzle. A puzzle! I suddenly got an idea. That lever was all a distraction. It probably didn't do anything. This room was a puzzle, one that could be solved with strength, tactics, tech, memory, and intelligence. This room was like a Sudoku puzzle, waiting for all of its numbers to align. Align? Align! That's it! This room was literally Sudoku! The desk being bolted down wasn't to hide the false lever, it was a hint like the free numbers they give you at the beginning of a game. "But how do I organize this?" I quietly asked myself. I examine each of the nine structures in my room: the bed, the dresser, shelf, the door, the windows, the couch, the TV, the IV fluid machine, and the chair . Start with the desk Richie, that's a given. "Wow, thanks Me, look who has all the brilliant ideas." I told myself. Striding over the desk, there was something that struck me a little off about the drawers. I only saw it for a second, but I knew that had to be the answer. But what was it about the dresser that had surprised me? The one difference that I saw earlier but passed it off as being old and missing pieces. The knobs! In a three-by-three grid of drawers, a knob was missing on the end of the central drawers forming an odd pattern that looked suspiciously like a reverse E. How is an E going to help me? It's not. But what if it was a 3 rather than an E! That was my key to solving the Sudoku puzzle. Looking around the room, I began to see a pattern, the bright red chair where Headmistress was looked like an 8, the pattern on the white door looked like a 4, and the windows formed a sideways 6, although that last one should've been a given. But I needed a grid to organize them into a Sudoku pattern. I locked eyes on the black scorch marks and ash left behind by the robots. In a matter of seconds, I had divided the room into nine sections. But how do I place them? Tapping each tile, I noticed that one was loose in every square which must have acted as a pressure plate of some sort. I walked around the room, seeing what furniture I could move around that would allow me to get Sudoku. At first it was hard, trying to notice numbers in the various forms of frames, furniture, and figures. Finally, I managed to find all the out of place, numerically shaped pieces of furniture. The bed seemed to make a 1 where the frame acted as the ends and the mattress as the center. I carefully scooted the white frame and mattress into the crude square against the left wall. Ever so carefully, I lifted the frame and carefully set it down on the loose tile, hopefully registering enough pressure to activate the door. As soon as I let go of the frame and it relaxed on top of the tile, a loud click from behind the far wall, right next to the pile of dust and robotic ash, clicked, like a part of a lock opening. One down, five left to go. I ran over the next piece of this impossible puzzle, the IV. I carefully unhooked the bag of fluid and set it down on the floor as I slowly wheeled the curved, white metal into the square adjacent to the bed and the dresser. As the metal rod rolled onto the tile, I heard another click, from the same corner of the room as the first. I carefully fit every piece of furniture into a square, either lifting it or rolling in into place. Just as I lifted the shelf from the corner of the room where the door pattern made an odd 4, I prayed to every deity I learned about in my old history class. Please, please, please, let this solve the puzzle. I must have been in here forever! With every step I took, more and more books slid off the shelf, making a mess on the floor. That hardly mattered, but I just had a feeling I'd need these. I grunted and set down the shelf, now lighter since all its books where now a trail on the floor. I inspected my work, looking carefully at the chair that looked like an 8 or the couch shaped like a 7. Everything appeared to be in place. I bent down and used my remaining strength to lift the self on the tile in the final square of this ridiculous Sudoku puzzle. I set down the incredibly heavy mass of wood, waiting for the lock to make the small click like the previous times and open the door, but nothing happened. I backed up, hoping to see that I needed to be in the center of the room, only nothing happened. Just as I was about to scream in frustration, a loud grinding of old gears and hinges made an almost unbearable noise. After several minutes, I noticed a small part of the wall next to the door begin to lift. The noise continued to grind getting louder and louder until it abruptly stopped, signaling that the wall was fully open, only that couldn't be. The hole now in the wall was no bigger than the bottom shelf that I had just moved. Maybe just big enough for me to crawl through if I got on my stomach, but even still, I'd be scraping my back against the roof. " If this gets me out of this room," I grumbled as I squatted down and onto my stomach. Wait a minute! This is a test! Just before I could stick my head through the crack in the door, I scooted out, getting to my feet. I had no idea, but I felt as though this was some sort of test. The books. Unconsciously, I strode over to the trail of books I previous left, grabbed a few, and began to stack them underneath the hole, making a sort of wedge. Now I had a space the same as an Amazon box but at least I had a safety feature and couldn't get trapped in the small corridor in the wall. I crouched down and looked back in the room. I carefully scooted into the darkness, slowly crawling towards the tiny square of light several yards away. The cold and darkness swept over me, growing creepier as I edged myself along, hoping for nothing to go wrong. But to no avail, I'm a spy and therefore nothing ever goes right.