> Whatever the Maffiyir’s goals for the distribution of contestants, I have to imagine they are frustrated. There isn’t a single arena without people from Fort Autumn, the area where Fluffy’s client is based, and they seem to be encouraging cooperation very effectively. Aside from accidents caused by poor visibility, there has been almost no violence between Clothes-Lovers.

>

> – Radio transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

“Hey guys!” called Vince. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you, obviously,” I growled. “That’s our excuse. What got you to jump down a deep dark hole?”

Vince shrugged, gesturing to his left. There was a black-haired little boy curled up in the next beanbag over, apparently asleep. “I heard a kid screaming and was worried it was one of ours. Jumped down the hole, took out the wall-monster he was dodging. He ran down here while I was fighting it, and… I mean, I knew he wasn’t our kid by then, but I wasn’t going to let a kid wander around a place like this by themselves. I followed him, and then we couldn’t seem to leave.”

That was a frustratingly reasonable explanation.

I kicked his beanbag. “Doesn’t explain why you’re sitting in their chairs. Or letting the poor kid sit in one. I’m sure you heard the warning about hidden dangers.”

He shrugged. “I did. And I’m sure there are some - or will be some - but the chairs are safe.”

“You can’t know that!”

He waved a hand across the room. “I’m pretty sure. I picked both of these up and moved them to a different part of the floor, and we sliced another one open. It was just full of stuffing.”

“It’s still more dangerous than sitting on the floor! Or standing!”

Vince was giving me an odd look. “Are you… okay?”

“Yes! No! Don’t dodge the question!”

Pointy interrupted. “Meghan got a lungful from a gas trap. Whatever toxin she ingested seems to lead to increased impulsivity and aggression.”

My husband reached for my hand, but focused on Pointy. “Shit. I ran into some of those, but I’ve only been breathing when I was sure it was safe. Can we heal her?”

“Gavin has been able to reset her internal chemistry, but without clearing the toxin, relief is extremely temporary, on the order of seconds.”

“I’m right here.”

Both Vince and Pointy looked at me, pity clear.

“Well, I don’t want the kids in the beanbags! Cassie, get your car back. There’s plenty of space in here. Gavin and Micah and that other little boy can take the other three seats.”

Vince raised an eyebrow. “Those seats are tiny. Will Micah even fit? He’ll be fine in a beanbag Meghan. Just let him relax and enjoy the Stardew Valley soundtrack. I’m sure things will get bad again soon enough.”

“The chairs are a trap, Vince!”

He stood, shaking his head as he put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure there is a trap, but it’s not in the chairs. How could it be? I’ve looked under them, I’ve taken them apart. There’s nothing warm inside them, no metal… are they showing up on your Life Sense?”

“No.” The word came out begrudgingly.

“Is anything?”

I frowned. “In this room? Only the people.”

He smiled at me. “Then there’s nothing here to be scared of.”

“We’re not safe!”

“I know. But whatever they’re going to spring on us isn’t something we can anticipate yet. Maybe the entire floor will drop out. Maybe the ceiling will fall on the spots that don’t have chairs. I looked around really well before I sat down, but I couldn’t find any signs. If we can’t figure it out, I think the best thing we can do is take a break so we’re rested to face whatever happens.”

“I do think Meghan’s suggestion about the cloudcar is a good one,” Pointy said. “Cassie, would you bring it back?”

“Kay!” my daughter sang out. The cheerful vehicle materialized next to me, and Cassie dropped down from my back, scampering inside and immediately beginning to play with the steering wheel, knobs, and dials. Vince set the strange boy down next to her, not rousing the child from his nap.

“You sure you want to go in there, buddy?” Vince asked Micah as Gavin took one of the back seats. “I’m confident the beanbags are safe, but you can sit on my lap, if you want.”

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Micah shook his head, squeezing in after his siblings. “No thanks.”

“I believe Micah has had his fill of traps today,” Pointy said. “He-”

“I’m going to check this room,” I said, shaking Vince’s hand off my shoulder. Pointy could bring my husband up to date. I really didn’t want to hear an account of Gavin’s reckless charge at Big Mama, a retelling of Micah’s brush with death, or a clinical assessment of my current state. Also, Vince’s sympathetic gaze and comforting touch were not having the effect I assumed he wanted them to have.

I stalked the room in a wide circle, first testing the doors. Vince had been right: just like we hadn’t been able to leave the hallway that led here, we couldn’t retreat from this room.

Vince had been right about the music, I realized. The stuff playing had been from the Stardew Valley soundtrack, and it segued to music from other cozy videogames. I could understand why other people felt so relaxed, listening to the tunes that had accompanied so many hours of past relaxation. Lucky me: I was chemically incapable of relaxing right now.

The food tables were interesting. Rows of packaged drinks stood against the wall. I saw pretty much every popular brand of soda and flavored water, as well as bottles of wine and cans of beer. I could only recognize about a third of the drinks. The other two-thirds bore strange names like “pine bud drink” and “Pocari Sweat.” I guess people like all kinds of things? Some, I couldn’t read at all, their packaging only legible to those who read Korean, Mandarin, or Cyrillic.

The snacks available also seemed global in scope, ranging from Pocky to popcorn, but they weren’t in their packaging, and had been arranged on trays like charcuterie. There’s something really weird about perfectly-organized potato chips.

The kid with Cleanse had nervously tested a few items and said that they seemed free of poison. “I can’t be completely sure, though, because a lot of these have always had stuff that’s bad for people in them.”

Most of us weren’t risking it. There was one young black guy popping cheese balls in his mouth with a defiant air and an older Nordic-looking woman who was working her way through the alcoholic offerings with morose dedication, but everyone else stuck to whatever lackluster snacks and drinks they’d brought with them.

The seating had drawn more people in, and Vince had scooted a beanbag next to the cloudcar and popped back into it, much to my frustration. I didn’t try to argue with him; when he felt like something was fine, he was hard to shake in the best of times, and I didn’t think I was going to be winning any debate team championships right now.

Instead I trudged in wide, repetitive circles.

As I’d told Vince before, nothing in the room was registering to Life Sense aside from the people. Analyze didn’t help me pick out any irregularities in the flat ceiling, plush carpeting, or painted walls.

“There has to be a trick somewhere.” I pulled out my sword and stabbed the wall above the snack table. My strike failed to penetrate, and I winced as the force reverberated through my arm but didn’t even scratch the paint. I repeated my test on the ceiling, the floor, and the glass doors, but I couldn’t damage any part of the room’s structure.

The tables, beanbags, and recliners weren’t so resistant.

“I think it’s dead now, Meghan.” Vince’s gentle teasing interrupted my frenzied assault on a recliner.

I blinked at him, then frowned at the scraps of wood, metal, and stuffing that littered the floor. “I guess,” I muttered. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I just… Is there anything I can do to help? It hurts, watching you like this. Do you want to come sit with us? I’ll give you a back rub.”

“I can’t,” I said.

He looked confused.

“Staying still is agonizing,” I clarified. “It feels like I’m trapped. Like something horrible is bearing down on me, but I’m not allowed to fight or escape.”

“Okay. What if I-”

I cut him off. “Just stay close to the kids. I’m trying to watch them, but… Alert is easy right now. Energy is easy. Patience? Focus? Staying still? Waiting? That’s all hard.”

“That’s all I can do?” His voice was almost pleading.

“Unless you secretly took Cure Poison.”

He shook his head. “I’ll keep asking any new arrivals. So… just let you walk?”

“Yeah.”

I continued my circuit, looking for anything new or unusual, trying to spot anything I might have missed on my first five or so loops. The room wasn’t barren, but it wasn’t cluttered, either. There weren’t that many things to Analyze.

I did my best, slowing down and walking with one hand on the outer wall, trying to glean whatever advantages I could from care and proximity, but my mind wandered.

Maybe there is no trap in this room. Then what?

The whole floor could drop away, like Vince said. The kids and I all have several seconds of Flight, so that should be fine, and it would be hard for a fall to hurt my husband.

The whole ceiling could fall in.

Shame we don’t have our Invulnerability. Oh! Except Gavin.

I muttered a quick message to Pointy, asking her to make sure my middle child was ready to use his second if necessary. When I heard her acknowledgement, I put it out of my mind.

Okay, floor. Ceiling. Walls could crush us? Same response.

Maybe they’ll make monsters appear in here with us. This room is big, but it’s pretty small to fight a Titan in.

Or maybe they’ll take us elsewhere to fight monsters? I guess that’s possible.

Hm… what else could they do? More gas would be bad. They could just make us hallucinate and let us kill each other. Oof. At least Vince will be safe from that, with that Oxygen Reservoir thing of his. I wish the rest of us had gas masks. They would have been useful in the dinosaur Challenge too. We need to prioritize making those with the matter replicators. Bullets are useful, but I don’t think they’re the most useful.

Vince came over several times to check on me, seemingly unbothered by the fact that I kept snapping at him to stay with the kids. I’m really not sure how long we stayed in the room, but it felt like an eternity.

Eventually, a clear casing snapped around me.

Home? Already? I’m surprised Pointy didn’t warn us.

Shit. This might be something else. I need to be ready.

When I was released from the psychedelic in-between space, I wasn’t back at Fort Autumn.

I was in another chamber, identical to the last one but four times the size.

It was absolutely packed with people.