The intro song started. This time it was classic rock and roll.

Nate came hopping out flailing away at an air guitar, throwing his head back and forth.

It’s called headbanging Nate threw the thought without missing a beat.

Nate started singing along with the lyrics.

It got to the scene with the mermaid in the pool.

“I… I remember this,” Nate whispered. He had stopped moving and turned completely white.

“What’s going on?” His voice cracked before he could finish.

He just got a feeling of confusion in his head. The author didn’t know either.

More scenes triggered memories. Dave getting punched into the ocean, Alvin holding the crystal ball during a word war, laying beside Luke under the stars.

There were a lot of scenes he didn’t recognize, and as the music trailed off, he walked out of view deep in thought.

The theme song ended. A book fell from the sky and opened up to a blank page. A quill started writing.

Rule 9 - Optional contests have their own unique set of rules.

and the scene changed to the massive exam hall. Nate was sitting at a desk, his laptop open in front of him.

The timer had just hit zero.

A man was sitting at a desk again. It was the same desk that Clark had been sitting at, but this man was a few sizes larger and had a rounded face. He looked nothing like Clark.

“Hello, contestants. I’m Kent.”

Ah, Nate thought. Must be fraternal twins.

“Phase two has officially begun, which means it’s my turn to run things. You will find that I’m not as soft as my brother was.”

“You may be wondering why I’m getting rid of so many people at once, well I have a secret for you. There are four thousand of you here right now. But one thousand of you didn’t win a contest to get here. You were handpicked by us. Only my brother and I know who is who, as well as the people who were invited. But they’re under a strict NDA, if anyone finds out they will be disqualified immediately.

My brother and I have disagreed since the beginning over this. It’s time to prove to him that those of you who were invited here are good enough to stay.”

“I am also announcing that as of today there will be no new contestants until phase 3.”

“As for the contest, it is a small town. One night the town hall vanishes. What happened, and why? For this story, magic is not allowed, and the story must be a minimum of three thousand words.”

“Teachers will be walking around dressed in green. Please raise your hand if you need assistance.”

Nate looked around and saw several people dressed in Green walking the aisles. He didn’t see Goldenpen.

“Doors will be locked for the first hour, and you have up to three hours to complete your story.”

“Stories will be posted on our site immediately. Judges will go over each and every story during the night and remove any that don’t meet the guidelines. Tomorrow at noon, the top three thousand stories, based on views, will be allowed to stay.“

“It is now time to start.” He finished with a cold stare at the camera for a second before it clicked off.

Nate looked around the room, trying to think of a plot. He noticed a few light bulbs going off over various heads. Even one candle. There were also a few brainstorms. It looked like Alice and Alvin had fairly common abilities.

Nate was at a loss. Without magic, how could a building vanish? An explosion would have woken up the town, made a large mess, and wouldn’t fit the criteria. An implosion maybe, but that was sci-fi.

Wait!! Nate thought. That’s it. I can use Sci-fi.

Nate ran through a list of possibilities. He could melt it somehow, and it just flowed down the drains.

A straight-up vanishing ray from a superhero story could work, but Nate didn’t like any of his ideas for that one.

Time Travel Nate snapped his fingers. He felt a static shock go down his back. He looked up just as it started to rain from his brainstorm.

Nate shook the water from his eyes and started typing. He didn’t even notice when the rain had stopped, but one of the teachers in green walked over and silently handed him a towel.

Nate took a few minutes to dry off, then folded the towel and put it on the corner of the desk.

He went back to typing, his fingers a flurry of activity.

The story was shaping up. Somebody had invented a time travel device. They had decided to market it to developers. Build a skyscraper in a day, just have that particular three-dimensional space travel to the future. They didn’t think about the fact that anyone going in or out of the building would be travelling through time. Cell phones would be a mess.

Their idea was to go to the past first, to get rid of the current building. Then jump to the future and get the new one.

As soon as they created the empty space, time corrected itself. Since that space was empty in the future, nothing had been built in the first place. When they tried the future, it was still an empty hole. They tried to find the original building but it had been lost in time.

Nate finished up by having the man rebuild the town hall by hand, brick by brick.

He cracked his knuckles and looked at the timer. 1:55:00 blinked across the screen. Nate had noticed several people get up and stretch, then sit down again. He watched carefully to make sure there wasn’t a secret signal or something. He finally caught somebody just as they were standing up, and they hadn’t done anything special. Nate took a chance and stood up. He stretched, then sat back down. His heart was thumping, expecting to get in trouble somehow. One of the teachers in green started walking over.

Nate didn’t know what to do. Should he pretend to type, He had an idea and grabbed a bottle of water from his laptop bag. He waited until they were a bit closer before he started drinking.

The teacher got to the desk. Nate was sweating visibly. The teacher picked up the towel, nodded at Nate, then walked away.

Nate’s body collapsed inward with relief.

He spent the next hour editing the story. It might not matter to the judges, but it would to the readers. Nate sighed. He had the feeling he would need to study analytics if he wanted to seriously compete here. What did readers like, or hate? What worked, what didn’t.

He took a quick look around for his group. Stan had left, but everybody else was still there. Nate assumed they would take advantage of the whole hour.

He read over his story one last time, then hit submit. He gathered up his things and walked out the doors.

“Hey, Nate,” Nancy was sitting on a padded bench waiting. Several benches lined the hallway, and they were all full. Some people were pacing back and forth or leaning against the walls.

“Don’t worry about the others. They always stay until the end. Stan went back to his room, he doesn’t like being around people.”

“Oh,” Nate said, unsure how to continue.

“I figured we could get a coffee together, and have a little talk since I missed you yesterday.”

“That sounds perfect,” the words were out of Nate’s mouth before he realized it.

They headed down unfamiliar halls. Everything Nate had learned from Luke’s training was screaming that they were going the wrong way.

Nate was about to speak up when Nancy turned to look at him.

“We’re here.” She opened a door and the aroma of fresh coffee was overwhelming.

“It’s a little cafe, tucked away down here. It’s usually pretty quiet, and the coffee is to die for.”

Nate looked around. The cafe was decorated in pink, with a heavy cat theme. Cat pictures and drawings were everywhere. Along one wall was a large bookcase filled with old dusty books.

Several cats were present. Some were lying in the window. Others roamed the ground, noses in the air, following one scent after another.

A strange-looking yellow cat with black spots had decided that it could make the jump from a nearby table to the top of the bookcase.

It couldn’t.

It clawed its way up the remaining two feet until it was perched at the top. Where it promptly began to cry a strange weird howling meow.

“Scotty,” One of the waitresses walked over with a stool. “When will you learn?”

Scotty let himself get picked up and placed back on the floor, giving the bookcase a final loud meow for good measure before going off in search of food.

The hostess came over to them. She was wearing cute pink and grey cat ears. Her nose was painted pink, and she was wearing a grey tail.

“Oh, you have a new one for us?” She nuzzled her head against Nate’s shoulder. “I like this one. I bet you drove Alice nuts.”

Nate thought back to their first meeting and laughed. “You could say that.”

“This is Kat,” Nancy said. “She reads auras like Alice.”

Kat held up a hand. Well, a paw. Nate hadn’t noticed that she was wearing paw gloves.

“Don’t say anything about the name. It’s just a coincidence.”

Nate just smiled.

“Welcome to the cat cafe, please find a seat and someone will be right over to take your order, meow”

“Sorry, I have to meow like that, it’s in my contract.”

“I think it's cute,” Nate couldn’t hold back a chuckle this time.

Kat winked at him and purred.

Nancy dragged Nate to an empty table. “We’re here for coffee.”

Nate finally snapped out of it and sat down across from Nancy.

“What can I get you today?” A waitress was already beside the table.

“I’ll have a cup of my usual,” Nancy said without thinking.

Nate took a few seconds and thought it over. “I’ll have a cup of dark roast, triple-triple with a shot of espresso.”

“Please,” he added.

“Triple triple?” Nancy was looking at Nate.

“Three sugar, three cream.” The waitress replied. “It’s a regional thing.”

Nate put his hand on his pocket, trying to resist the urge to check on how his story was doing.

“They don’t even publish the stories until the three hours is up. You can sit back and breathe now.”

“I guess I’m pretty transparent,” Nate chuckled.

“Clear as water, my friend.”

They both laughed.

“Ok, so help me take my mind off of it.” Nate tilted his head and looked at her.

“Well, why don’t you tell me what you wrote?”

Before Nate could start, a waitress came back with their drinks.

Nate took a sip, it was cold enough to take a long sip. He then focused on explaining his story. Nancy nodded along, asking questions here and there.

“Wonderful story,” She said when he got to the end.

“What about yours?” Nate asked.

“I had a shrink ray. They were doing a tv series based on Honey I Shrunk The Kids. Due to budget cuts, it was cheaper for them to develop an actual shrink gun than use CGI.

But it was a big mistake. They were supposed to be at 2nd street instead of 2nd ave. Completely wrong building. Well, they didn’t realize it until it was too late. The town hall even got lost for a bit, until they found it in a bird's nest nearby. They reversed the shrinking, and everything was back to normal.

Nate laughed several times at the telling of the story. He couldn’t wait to read it. He took out his phone and checked the time.

“Still half an hour to go.”

“Do you want to play scrabble?” Nancy asked.

“Sure.”

Nancy walked over to the bookcase. The bottom opened up and there were board games inside. Nancy grabbed one and tried to close the door but there was a cat in the way. She tried to nudge it out of the way with her foot, but it wasn’t having any effect. With a sigh, she bent down and picked up the cat while closing the door. Then she put the cat back down and scratched behind its ears.

“You don’t find the cats annoying?” Nate asked when Nancy returned to the table.

“I have two cats of my own. This place helps me not miss them as much.” She chuckled, but there was a hint of sadness in her voice.

“How long have you been here?”

“Five years, and ten days.”

Nate spit out his coffee.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry.” Nate grabbed a handful of napkins and thrust them at Nancy.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nancy took the napkins and wiped off her face while Nate wiped the table.

“Really though? Over five years?”

Nancy nodded

“Are you allowed to go back and visit?”

“Every six months you are allowed to go home for one week. You can also save that week for holidays like Christmas or birthdays.

“Wow. I don’t know how you’re doing it.” Nate had expected maybe a year or two at most. He couldn’t imagine spending five years here.

“It’s not easy, but that’s why I’ve got my adopted family.” She smiled.

“Now let’s get the game started.” Nancy opened the box and laid out the pieces.

They went back and forth, calling out the words as they played. Along with the point amount, and the occasional triple word score.

Before they knew it, the rest of Silver Platypus room was walking into the cafe.

“I told you they would be here,” Alvin held out his crystal ball triumphantly.

“You didn’t need a crystal ball for that.” Kat gently caressed his cheek with a paw.

“It’s a good thing we got Stan on our way here,” Stacy was the last one in, and she closed the door behind her.

“Who’s winning?” Dave stood behind Nancy and looked at her tiles.

“You know what, we forgot to keep score,” Nancy started laughing.

Nate joined in.

“But that’s not…” Dave tried to talk but got cut off by Nate.

“We even scored our words, to see which one won that round, but we didn’t write anything down.”

They both started laughing again.

“I think we both won the same number of rounds, what do you say we call it a tie?” Nancy winked at Nate.

“I agree, excellent tie game. I look forward to our next match.”

By now Dave was tearing his hair out. “That’s not how you play scrabble!!” He grabbed the box and pointed his finger furiously from one of them to the other. “You’re banned. Hear me, banned. The both of you. Banned.” He put the box away and came back to join them.

The group quickly moved a few tables around so they could all sit together. It was obvious they had done this before.

“How did everybody do?” Nancy asked once they were all seated again and had given their orders to the waitress.

They all seemed confident in their success.

They went around the table telling their stories, and how they came up with different parts.

Once they had all told their tale, the conversation turned to Kent.

“I don’t like him,” Jaz said straight out. The rest of them quickly agreed.

“I think he has a lot of plans, and we aren’t going to like any of them.” Luke looked down at his hands. “Just in case we don’t all make it tomorrow, I want to say thank you to all of you. You’ve really made my time here enjoyable.”

The group comforted Luke and managed to get his spirits back up.

“Oh, what’s this now?” Stacy was looking at her phone. “Open up the app.”

Everybody did, and they were greeted by a new message.

Optional contest tonight 8pm

Pass/fail

Prize $100,000

Conditions: You will be unable to see the screen as you type. You must maintain a 90% typing accuracy and reach 500 viewers within a week.

Applicants must be in room 2304 ten minutes before the contest begins.

“That looks fun,” Nate’s eyes had widened at the amount of prize money.

“Don’t be fooled.” Jaz pushed down Nate’s phone so she could look him in the eye. “If you lose, you’ll go home. Are you really willing to risk your position on this ship for money?”

“It’s not a risk if I win. I actually type with the screen off a lot, it helps me concentrate. This is nothing new.”

Stan held up a sign

Bad Idea

“I agree with Stan,” Stacy said taking a sip of her drink.

“I’m doing it. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? To take part in contests and try to win my way to the top. I’ll never get anywhere if I stick to just the mandatory contests. And besides, this will help me learn to relax for the really important ones. Trust me, it’ll be a breeze.”

Nancy help up her hand before anyone could speak. “Nate has made up his mind, it’s time for us to support him.”

“She’s right,” Stacy finished her drink and ordered another one to go. “Do you want to go back to our room and practice?”

Nate agreed. Nancy took him up front to show him how it worked. They could tip money or merit points. The money would be taken out once their time was over, kind of like an IOU. They didn’t want contestants to abuse the system by tipping outrageous amounts and asking for some of it back. Merit points were transferred immediately.

One merit point was worth $10.

Nate tipped 10 merits for the table.

“After tonight I’ll be able to start tipping real money,” Nate said with a dreamy look in his eyes. He was staring off into the distance and didn’t notice anything around him.

“Hey, snap out of it.” Luke snapped his fingers in front of Nate’s face.

“This isn’t about the money. Well, not just the money. It’s about proving that I belong here.”

“We understand sweetie,” Nancy patted him on the shoulder.

They headed back up and Nancy said goodbye.

“Wait,” Nate called back. “Why don’t you come with us?”

“Adults aren’t allowed in the underage rooms.” Dave said.

“Well, is there a library or study hall we can use instead?” Nate asked.

“Yeah, both. You can turn off the screen on your laptop and still use the keyboard?”

“Yup. That’s how I usually do it.”

“Then let’s go to the study hall!” Alice twirled in joy.

They changed direction and headed to the study hall.

Nate spent a few hours practicing. His typing speed dropped down to what a regular human could do normally. His error rate was 2%.

The rest of the group slowly gained confidence in Nate as they saw him repeat the same results time after time. By the time Nate was done they were true believers.

They stopped for a quick dinner before Nate went off to the contest.

He got to the room and opened the door just in time. Just as he sat down the lights faded and the door locked with a loud bang.

With such low light, it was hard to see much. But there was a keyboard in front of him, on a black rubber mat. He ran his fingers over the mat and felt bumps that got larger the closer they were to the keyboard.

Must be to help you find it in this terrible lighting. Nate thought to himself.

A voice started speaking, coming at them from all four corners of the room at once. It was Kent.

“Welcome to our after-dark challenge. You have ten minutes to familiarize yourself with the keyboard, and layout.”

A timer in the middle of the room started counting down from ten minutes.

“You are not allowed to use anything other than that keyboard. No light sources at all.”

Nate started to feel sick. He knew what was coming.

“You will remain in here for two hours. If you need to leave for any reason, you will not be allowed back in.

“The plot is a lost puppy dog in a horror setting, and please don’t kill the puppy.”

Nate didn’t know if he was supposed to laugh. It sounded easy enough to him though.

He looked down at the keyboard. Perfect Nate thought. It’s a full keyboard, with separate arrow, home, and end keys. The control keys are in the usual spot. I couldn’t have asked for a better keyboard.

Nate typed out a few words. It felt comfortable. He was still feeling confident, but that confidence was dropping as each second ticked by on the clock.

Nate gulped as the timer hit zero. A loud buzzer sounded and the room went pitch black.