Modern Age Online

Kaleb entered through the door to the 4th floor into a 10 foot wide empty hallway. The hallway walls were the same material they had built the maze walls out of. Kaleb could see all the way down the hallway to the open door on the other end. If Obadiah hadn’t given his weird warning, Kaleb might have rushed down the hallway. But, with the older man’s warning in his head, Kaleb slowly entered the hallway while keeping his eyes open for anything.

He was barely five feet into the hallway when saw wide sections of the walls opened and a large metal hammer swung toward him. Kaleb leaned back as the hammer swung in front of him and disappeared into the opposite wall. The first trap seemed to trigger the other traps all the way down the hall. Kaleb took another step back and gaped at the number of buzz-saw blades spinning around the hall, pendulum hammers, floor spikes, and flamethrowers.

The cacophony assaulted his ears and he couldn’t hear himself cussing at the booby-trapped hallway. Pistons hissed, metal screeched, and air whistled as all the traps continued to scream in the hall. Taking a deep breath Kaleb moved to the first trap, the pendulum hammer. He waited till it passed and moved through it with little effort. Next, he moved around a spinning buzz-saw blade sticking out the center of the floor. As he moved around the saw, he felt the floor depress under his left foot and something slammed into his back.

Kaleb fell to the floor, his face inches away from the buzz-saw. He rolled away a little and looked down to see brown netting wrapped around his waist and torso. Shit. Kaleb thought as he struggled to get his hand into his pocket. A few minutes of struggling later he grabbed his laser cutter. The cutter made short work of the net and he was back on his feet and studying the next trap.

The floor spikes made a loud thunk as the shot out of the floor then hissed loudly as they sank back down. Rows of spikes covered the floor from one side of the hall to the other. The all shot up as one and sunk down sequentially from the front to the back. The whole of the spike trap was five rows of twenty spikes. Kaleb smirked as he waited for the spikes to shoot up again before he dashed through.

Too easy, old man. Kaleb mentally laughed as he took in the next few traps. Looking ahead, he saw more hammers, buzz-saws, and spikes. He could see the red glow of the flamethrowers beyond the second row of spikes. It looked like the traps repeated but grew in number as he went down the hall. This time there were two hammers swing in opposite directions barring his way.

Simple timing made that trap easy to pass, next two buzz-saws slid back and forth across the floor. Again simple timing made this one easy, and he moved past the saws easily. Again he triggered the net trap dodging it easily and letting the netting hit the far wall. The spikes had changed their own timing, shooting up from the back row and moving up to the front. He had to hop a little, but he passed through the second spike trap and took in the next set of traps.

The third set of traps was just as easy. Time the hammers, jump the saws, dodge the net, and watch the spikes. This time he had to deal with a flamethrower spitting fire out of the wall. But a simple roll under the stream cleared that trap easily. Kaleb stopped before the final set of traps and looked around for a camera he was sure was around. Sure enough, he found several dotted along the ceiling.

Looking into one camera Kaleb gave a theatrical yawn. He thought he heard the old man try to speak up but the sounds of the traps were still too loud. Kaleb put his cupped hand up to where his ear would be and made a show of trying to hear. Shaking his head Kaleb went back to the fourth set of traps and studied what was next.

It looked like there was still only three hammers and he could see four slightly larger buzz-saws just past them. 1… 2… 1…. 2… Kaleb counted in his head as he lazily walked through the swinging hammers. As he moved around the last hammer, he cast a smug smile up at the cameras. Which meant he missed the fourth hammer swinging out horizontally from the wall until it slammed into his chest.

The hammer tossed Kaleb back into the path of the third hammer which crashed into his side and sent him spinning to the floor. Kaleb coughed and gasped violently as pain screamed across his ribs and chest. He could hear the hammers still swinging from just above him and he knew if he tried to move another hammer would slam into him.

Inching along the floor, Kaleb crawled to the relative safety of the space between the hammers and the buzz-saws. He could now see the slot in the wall were the sideways spinning hammer swung out from the right-side wall. Cursing his own idiocy, Kaleb stood and hugged the left wall holding an arm to his ribs in pain. Kaleb did his best to shake off the pain as he got ready to jump the spinning saws.

He guessed that Obadiah had changed the traps for the final set so he prepared to jump back at the first sign of trouble. He hopped over the spinning saws, dodged the thrown netting, and moved quickly next to the floor spikes but nothing new happened. Kaleb breathed a sigh of relief and winced in pain the exhalation had caused him.

Next were the floor spikes and here the trap had changed dramatically. The spikes seemed to hum with energy and they didn’t appear to have a pattern. The spikes shot up from the floor in random intervals, sometimes in pairs and sometimes as a whole group. Kaleb did his best to try to count the intervals but every time he did the pattern changed. Gritting his teeth Kaleb waited until a section of the floor was clear before he rushed forward.

He felt the air shift as spikes popped up from the floor close by. As he made it to the other side, he heard the loud sound of a spike right behind him and felt it bump up against his back armor. As the spike made contact a freezing cold traveled down his spine and his legs locked up. Kaleb fell face first into the hard metal floor, unable to move. His whole body felt numb, and he mentally screamed as he tried to move his arms and legs.

He stayed face down on the floor for minutes until feeling returned to his body. Kaleb shuddered as he sat up. That sucked! Kaleb thought as he rubbed his arms trying to return feeling to them. The feeling of being trapped in his own body had been the scariest thing Kaleb had experienced in the game. He did his best to shake off the feeling and crawled toward the exit.

The nozzle for the flamethrower rotated out of the wall and spewed flame over Kaleb’s head. Kaleb ignored the flamethrower and continued crawling. He saw another nozzle spring from the opposite wall and he rolled quickly forward to dodge a second spray of fire. He came to a stop on his back just in front of the stairs to the fourth floor.

As he lay there, the sound of the traps in the hallway disappeared and he heard Obadiah chuckling.

“So… what did you learn?”

Kaleb coughed and reached under his armor to rub his ribs. “That you’re an asshole?”

“I had you tranqed and brought to a secret facility. Of course I’m an asshole. But, what did this lesson teach you.” Obadiah asked again sounding unapologetic.

“Don’t get complacent.” Kaleb said through gritted teeth.

Obadiah laughed again. “Exactly! You thought you had it all figured out so what did you do? You got cocky. Being a Mundane Super means that if you get cocky, you get sloppy, and if you get sloppy, then you get dead. Lucky for you they enchanted those hammers to soften the blow a little.”

Kaleb coughed loudly. “I’d get someone down here to check that little enchantment.”

“Yeah, Yeah. I’ll get right on that. Meanwhile, you should move on to the next floor.” Said Obadiah.

Kaleb coughed again and started up the stairs. His chest was screaming, but he ignored it as best he could. As he entered the 3rd floor it presented him with a brightly tiled floor. The tiles took up almost the whole floor, starting and ending 5 feet from the entrance and exit. Each tile was a large 3 by 3 square and they seemed to glow with fluorescent light.

The second and third thing that stuck out about the room were the large blue and green mirrors on either side of the room. Kaleb studied the mirrors for a few seconds before he spotted something in the blue mirror. Certain tiles glowed blue in the mirror revealing a path toward the exit. Turning he found that the same was true for the green mirror and the path looked identical to the one shown in the blue mirror.

Taking a deep breath Kaleb stepped onto the first tile shown on the path. Immediately the tile disappeared and Kaleb lost his balance falling into the inky blackness below the tile.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Kaleb screamed as he went tumbling into the darkness.

A few seconds later Kaleb’s face collided with the metal floor and he heard metal sliding against metal. Groaning he got up as best he could and looked around. He was back in front of the entrance. A metal section of the wall was closing having just spit him out onto the floor.

“The obvious answer is not always the best.” Obadiah said giggling to himself.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious.” Kaleb snapped.

Obadiah growled loudly. “I was a Lieutenant, ya lizard. Now how about you stop with the lip and figure out the problem.”

Kaleb flipped the bird up at the ceiling assuming that is where the cameras were again. Standing he moved over to the mirrors again and studied each image. It looked like the lighted path had changed, now both mirrors showed different paths. Comparing the mirrors Kaleb mulled over Obadiah’s words. So Let's ignore the lighted paths, Kaleb thought. Does that mean the path is the tiles not showing up in the mirrors?

Kaleb continued to bounce his eyes between the mirrors as he lined himself up with a tile that wasn’t shown on either mirror. Okay, two forward then left then straight again. Kaleb thought as his feet hit the first tile. Kaleb smiled as his tile didn’t disappear and he moved to the next tile. As his foot hit the tile Kaleb noticed that the tile was now lit up in the green mirror. Before he could pull his foot away a strong suction grabbed his leg and dragged him down.

Once again he was flung out in front of the entrance. “Shit!” Kaleb swore loudly.

Obadiah stayed silent this time as Kaleb got to his feet again and stomped over to the mirrors. Again the path had changed on both mirrors. Kaleb sighed as he tried to line up the path again. He glanced between both mirrors a few times until something occurred to him. Kaleb smiled wide as he brought his metal fist back.

“Wait, don’t…” Obadiah started to say.

*CRASH*

Kaleb smashed his fist into the blue mirror as hard as he could. Several pieces of the mirror fell to the floor and the nearest tiles. Careful to avoid the tiles Kaleb picked out the larger pieces of the mirror before he walked over to the green mirror.

“EXPENSIVE!” Obadiah screamed, reduced to single word sentences in his anger.

“KIDNAPPED!” Kaleb screamed back at the retired super.

Obadiah spluttered as Kaleb punched the green mirror and sifted through the pieces. After finding a suitably sized piece he lined up the blue and green mirror pieces and looked through them at the tiled floor. The cyan color of the two mirrors revealed both lighted paths. Kaleb moved onto the first tile and noticed that the path changed as he stepped on a tile.

“Come on! During the war the military would drop us off in the woods buck-ass naked and tell us to survive for a month! What should I have done? Invite you to lunch, have tea, let you get nice and ready then drop you into this test?” Obadiah seemed to find his voice again.

Kaleb scoffed as he used the combined mirrors to move across the tiles. “What’s wrong with that? I love tea.”

Obadiah scoffed right back. “The point of this test is to see how you do under pressure and unprepared. Normally I would play some of that abysmal poppy nonsense you kids call music. Really drives the trainees crazy.”

“Why aren’t you?” Kaleb asked, curious.

“Ahem, I have a right to be curious about my grandson’s benefactor. I wanted to get a sense of you.” Obadiah explained.

Kaleb stopped on a tile and grinned up at the ceiling. “And?”

“You’re an asshole.”

“HA!” Kaleb laughed as he began to move again.

With the help of the two mirrors Kaleb made his way quickly through the tiled floor. He waited for Obadiah to say anything about his performance or the next floor. But, the old man was keeping oddly quiet. Shrugging his shoulder Kaleb climbed the next set of stairs toward his next challenge.