The next morning Sally climbed up the pile and looked toward the wall. What she saw shocked her out of any remaining drowsiness.

Jon had uncovered the rest of the sign.

It read “Sally Enter here” and had an arrow pointing to the doorway. The hallway beyond the door was choked with debris, which Jon was in the process of removing. What he was pulling out seemed a little different from the typical stuff; it was mostly racks of equipment and large metal boxes. Occasionally Jon would carry something out of the hallway, put it down, look at it for a while, and then fiddle with it. Once he was done, he would run back and get something else.

Sally put on her skis and shuffled over to where he was working. In spite of her best efforts, it seemed that she was getting reasonably good at ski-shuffling.

“Looks like I'm famous,” she said, gesturing toward the sign.

“Yep, but no lights, so probably B list.”

“Yep.”

“So, what are these things you’re moving?”

“They appear to be parts of a large computing device, or system. These are extremely powerful, capable of self-determinism, or truly impressive data crunching. Similar to myself.”

“Can they tell us why we are here?” Sally asked.

“No, they appear to have been wiped. No data at all, which is extremely strange. Even I had a baseline to start with, although mine was minimal and it took a long time to come up to my current level. Another unusual aspect is that because of their potential power and versatility, these units are quite valuable.”

“Can we use them?”

“Possibly. But it would take a while and they need a great deal of power. To give you a sense of perspective, I could pack my entire database and processing algorithms into one of these boxes and it would use less than one-trillionth of its capabilities. Whole civilizations have lived on machines similar to these. The potential here is staggering.”

“What are they doing here?”

“Concerning that, I have no information. I can tell you, though, that the event that caused the piles and damage in the arena area also pulled these here through that hallway.”

For such valuable things, Jon had placed them rather haphazardly on the existing debris. As Sally watched, one tipped over and crashed onto its side. They were as tall as she and probably very heavy, but Jon moved them like they were empty cardboard boxes. It was somewhat comical to see someone as small as him move something as large as these devices. Sally didn’t know what Jon was made of, but he was really tough.

As observers since the beginning of time have found, it is fascinating to watch someone else work. Sally maintained the tradition as Jon cleared the hallway. He carried out computing box after box, and eventually ran out of room on the debris pile, and spread out to the arena floor. As he went back and forth Jon was packing down a good trail. Knowing him, this was part of a plan that he’d devised before even starting the process.

Sally moved over to look at some of the machines near the hallway. For something so valuable, they were simply big featureless metal boxes with no apparent controls or indicators. She wondered if they could morph or change if they needed to? She touched one, but it just felt like some sort of metal.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sally caught a flash of light, or perhaps movement, behind one of the big boxes. There was nothing obvious, so she unstrapped her skis and approached the box to investigate. Jon had packed the local area enough that she should be okay if she was careful.

Looking behind the box revealed nothing, and a quick search of the area was equally productive. None of the haphazardly placed boxes nearby seemed about to fall over, but perhaps one of them had shifted a little? She pushed on one, but it didn’t move at all. She pushed a little harder and felt a sting. She snatched her hand back back and examined her palm. Somehow, she’d cut herself, again. So far, her blisters and other little cuts had healed fine, so she didn’t worry about it. Not that she could do much, anyway.

She carefully searched a few more of the other boxes nearby. There was some movement under one of them, and a closer inspection revealed a few spider-rabbit poop creatures running to hide. Ah, so her nemeses were back. They seemed to follow her, but the truth was most likely that they could be found everywhere.

With the mystery solved, she used the trail Jon had made to return to the camp, picking up her skis along the way.

While Jon ferried the boxes around and arranged them in some order she couldn’t figure out, Sally tried to clean the other Sally's dress, or at least remove a layer or two of grime. John had found a pail sort of thing, which Sally used as a washtub. The dress was even prettier as it got cleaner, a very nice deep green, with a complex weave that made a pattern of waves.

Sally draped the dress over some tubing to dry. It looked much better now. Sally had no idea what she would use it for, if anything, but it was very pretty. As she thought about it, she realized this was the first non-practical thing she had kept since she woke in the hospital room.

Sally turned away and found Jon standing right beside her! She jumped and shrieked!

“The hallway is now clear," he stated flatly. "I propose we take a break from what we are doing and see where it goes. There are a number of reasons that dictate this course of action. One is the sign and the second stems from my evaluation of these boxes. They are extremely valuable. If we can establish a strong argument for ownership, or rather, a lack of any other owner, then we would be in an advantageous position if our situation changes.”

It took a moment for Sally to process what Jon had said.

“So, we’re rich? Woo hoo! Really, though, what about whoever is running this experiment? Does that mean that they are so wealthy that they can let these things sit here?”

“I have no information concerning that. There are entities to whom wealth would be meaningless, but they are typically so strange that this sort of environment,” he waved to indicate the area around them, "would be incomprehensible. For more mainstream types, this is a lot of wealth. To give you an idea, it is more the wealth of a nation rather than that of an individual.”

Sally thought back to what Jon had said earlier, “Since these are just sitting here, does that mean this place is, well, running on automatic? Did whoever set this up live in those machines? Are we just kicking around something like an abandoned laboratory?” Sally asked.

“At this time, I have no way of knowing. That is why we need to collect more information.”

“Is it possible that we are…” she trailed off. “I don’t know! You are the one with all the information! Don’t you have any idea?”

“As I have told you, I do not speculate. I take data and compare what we observe to this data and calculate probabilities based on these comparisons. I do not guess. Things I observe I add to my data. I spend a lot of time making sure the data I add agrees with the data I have. This is what I do. You can guess, I will evaluate those guesses.”

“Don’t you have lists of what others have done in similar situations? Can’t you use what you know about those as your guesses?”

“Yes, but this situation does not correlate well with any other in my records. This may have been deliberate on the part of those who supplied my data. I do not know. Our situation may be unique, but that is unlikely given the extent of all possible things. I can assure you that I don’t know what you want me to know. Hopefully, we can collect enough information to answer the questions before we are turned off in the same manner as the others we have found.”

That was cold, but Jon was right, even if he had the subtlety of the hammer to the head. All they could do was carry on and see what happened.

Sally spoke, mostly to herself, “And…we always get back to the question... why me?? What am I doing here? I'm an ordinary person, from an ordinary place, who did ordinary things. As far as I can tell the only different thing about me is that I'm here.”

Jon stopped moving, like he did when he was thinking hard. Sally waited.

“Well, that is interesting. The last comment you threw out does have some merit. It is not unheard of for seemingly ordinary individuals to be caught up in events manipulated by higher beings. These events may mold these individuals into much more than what they started as. I will have to spend some time reviewing the pertinent files. They are extensive so this will take some time, days perhaps.”

With that being said, and since it was still relatively early in the “day”, prepared for a journey down the new hallway. They tidied up the campsite, packed enough food and water for Sally, plus a few empty bags for anything they might find, and made their way to the door in the wall. Sally was happy that her stamina had improved so much that she no longer needed the wheelchair. After climbing the trail in the debris, they paused to take one more look at the sign.

“Does this look like your writing?” Jon asked.

“Hard to tell. I never wrote signs this tall, but maybe?”

Sally continued on, entering the doorway. Jon followed. As they took their first steps down the hallway there was a noise from behind them. They both turned to observe a spider-rabbit scrabbling up and over the edge of the debris pile and onto the trail. Without a pause, It ran past them and scooted on down the hallway.

Sally and Jon looked at each other, then at the rapidly disappearing creature.

“I wonder what that was about?” Sally mused. “Do you suppose he was late for something?”

“Yes,” Jon answered. “All frivolity aside, he may be a part of a monitoring system. The good news is that if he is, then it may be that there is less coverage in here.” He gestured ahead. “Shall we follow?”

“Let’s.”

Sally began walking and didn’t even flinch when Jon’s hand flew by.

They walked. And walked. And walked.

Sally started to say something.

Jon interrupted, “About two miles.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.”

Actually, she had been. “Does your hand show how far until the end?”

“Yes. About one more mile.”

“Anything interesting along the way?”

“Yes. More walls, a ceiling, and floor. Just like here.”

“Are you saying that there’s information in repetitiveness?”

“No, I am saying that if I could be bored I would be. If it were possible see through these walls it would help, but they are made of the foundation of this universe, which I can’t penetrate.”

Sally still didn’t really know what “foundation of the universe” meant, but, like everything else she didn’t get, it probably wasn’t important.

“Were the computing boxes dragged all this way?” she asked.

“It appears so. I can detect tiny particles from the boxes on the floor and walls.”

“Did the spider-rabbit go all this way too?”

“Yes, I am picking up traces.”

“By the way, I thought you couldn’t get bored. How do you know if you should be bored?”

“It is the new interface. I now have a boredom counter. Since I upgraded my interface because of you, I put the blame on you.”

“You’re welcome.”

On they trudged. Sally managed to stay quiet for at least five minutes.

“John?”

“Mmmph.”

“You’re smarter than me.”

“Mmmph.”

“Is the evil scientist smarter than you?”

“Yes.”

“How? You seem to know a lot about everything.”

“There is a rating system used to calculate social dynamics and it allows for a general understanding of how much trouble you can expect when you interact with others. In other word, it is an approximate gauge of capability.”

“What are you, a gazillion?”

“As I am now, a three out of ten.”

“And the evil scientist?”

“I estimate a seven.”

“So, he’s just a little more than twice as smart as you? That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“No, it is a logarithmic scale.”

“...?”

“I am a three, a four is sixteen times smarter, a five is 256, and so on. Note, as I said, these are very rough guidelines. For instance, I use most of my processing power to store, access, and verify data, and another level three may manipulate trans-dimensional fields. The same complexity of tasks, but completely different processes.”

“So, the scientist is so smart that we are totally screwed.”

“It is unlikely we have its full attention. The evidence I have acquired gives a good probability that this experiment is operated by a sub-sub process spawned from the scientist. The rule of thumb is that each spawning drops the level by one. A sub-sub spawn used here would be level five. Maybe a capable four. If we were being monitored by the scientist we would be screwed-screwed-screwed, but since it is a sub-sub mind we are just screwed.”

“Was that a joke?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Good one.”

Silence.

Sally thought about the stuff Jon had been saying. Being human, she had to ask. “Um... so what am I? What is my number?”

“Nearly a one.”

Sally shut up. She had no desire to find out how nearly.

Eventually, the end of the hallway approached. Jon motioned for Sally to wait, then he zoomed ahead to the opening, looked around, and zoomed back. He had his third eye open and gestured that they proceed, “It appears safe. I haven’t detected anything threatening.”

They stopped at the point where the hallway opened into a large circular room, a few hundred feet across, with a featureless ceiling about fifteen feet above the floor. The walls of the room continued with the fake wood beams near the floor and ceiling, but unlike all of the walls they had seen to date, there were vertical beams placed every twenty feet, or so. From where they stood there didn’t appear to any other exits. Out on the floor were a few more computing boxes standing upright, and against the wall, ten feet to the right of the hallway opening were a number more, piled haphazardly on top of each other.

Jon spoke up, “This is where the computing boxes originally resided. When the gravity shifted, most of them funneled out the door and down the hallway. The boxes over there,” he waved toward the ones piled to the right of the door, “got hung up on one of the wall beams.”

He continued. “This situation is more interesting than you might think. A number of times I have tried scanning with gravity waves and found that they could not penetrate the walls. The evidence is that the heavy had some way of circumventing this limitation. If I could duplicate its method then our situational awareness would increase greatly. So far, I have found no information in my files that would allow me to accomplish this feat, but I now know it is possible.”

They walked into the room and up to one of the boxes left standing. Its base was embedded in the floor, which explained why it hadn’t moved. Scratches and gouges on the floor indicated that the majority of the computing boxes hadn’t been as solidly fastened in place.

Jon spoke up, “I have reached some conclusions based on what we have uncovered so far. When this room was operating, it contained a very intelligent entity. The gravity event that disrupted this area either terminated the entity or sent it to backup. This would be extremely unusual since beings as intelligent as this one are quite aware of almost everything. It would have understood the effects of upsetting the heavy.”

He paused, then continued, “The evidence is very compelling. It leads to a near certainty that the gravity event caused by the heavy was not precipitated by the entity that used to reside here.”

“It is also very improbable that this was a direct attack by the heavy. It is almost a certainty that the destruction here was collateral damage from what the heavy did when its Sally died. I have a great deal of data that proves that upper-level intelligences find high humor in manipulating others into unintentionally doing their dirty work.”

Sally was shocked. She had thought that the higher-level beings would be more, well, benevolent. Even though she was angry that she had been kidnapped and cloned, she really had thought there was some good reason behind what had occurred.

“Do you mean that the heavy's Sally was killed just so the heavy would have a tantrum and destroy whatever used to live here?”

“I cannot be one-hundred percent sure, but it does correlate well with the evidence we have.”

“Isn’t there some sort of police force to take care of this type of thing?”

“No. It’s complicated. Amongst the hyper-intelligent, the situation is more akin to detente, with constant politicking, negotiation, lying, cheating, coercion, manipulation, and so on.”

"Ha! Sounds like home.”

“It is, but with much smarter players, arcane technologies, and some completely crazy super civilizations in the mix.”

“So, we’re trapped in an experiment run by some evil scientist and there isn’t anyone to come and save us?”

“No, quite the opposite. Yes we are trapped here, but I strongly expect that there are others, some of whom were friends of the entity who used to live here, who might help us for their own reasons.”

She looked harder at Jon. It wasn’t likely, but, except for whatever had answered her prayers, he was the only other super-intelligent being she had met in this place. “I have to ask... are you the evil scientist?”

Jon looked back at her and started rubbing his hand and tentacle together. “Bwa-ha-ha-ha,” he said in a monotone.

Then he added, “You know, you really shouldn’t have asked. It would more appropriate to observe, ask sly questions, and come to your own conclusions. Although, even if I were the scientist, you really do not have much chance.”

“I could pray for help, Who knows, something might answer.”

Jon paused, “You know… that is a credible threat. I am proud of you. Now, back to work.”

They walked around and looked at the other boxes. There wasn’t much to see, except for the spider-rabbit, which scurried off and hid behind another box every time they got close. Jon wandered over to examine the pile of boxes while Sally made a circuit of the room. Across from the hallway, she found one section where the wall was set back a few feet between two of the vertical beams. When she investigated, she found a narrow alleyway leading off behind one of the beams. It was nearly impossible to spot the opening without being right next to it.

Sally was peering down the passageway when she heard a loud metallic rending sound. She spun around and watched as Jon ripped one of the boxes out of the floor. He peered down the hole that was revealed.

Sally was used to Jon’s casual displays of strength. She walked over and looked down the hole too. It went straight down and she could barely make out a pinpoint of light in the distance.

John reached over to the box he had ripped out and tore off a small piece of metal. He turned to the hole and tossed the piece up into the air, it nearly hit the ceiling and then fell back down into the hole.

Sally started, “Why did you…” Jon put up his hand to stop her. Shortly afterward, the piece of metal popped out of the hole, rose to about five feet from the ceiling and fell back down. Jon caught it.

“There is a gravity inversion between us and the opening on the other side,” he commented.

Jon’s hand flew past and went down the hole. They waited.

“Hmmm, at first evaluation I detect little of interest on the other side. It is a flat plane that extends in all directions for hundreds of miles, which is as far as I can sense. There are a few very large pyramids scattered about. The major problem is that the gravity on the other side would crush you.”

Sally looked down the hole, “It doesn’t look that deep. If the other side goes on forever wouldn’t we have seen... uh... something out of the windows where we were?”

“This universe is well known for spatial folds that can confuse your sense of direction and distance. What we perceive as being near could actually be light years distant. It is possible, though, that this could be a way out of this maze.”

Jon’s hand flew out of the hole. It reattached to Jon for a short while, then parted and flew back down the hole.

“Since the data channel through the hole was limited, I had to physically reconnect to access everything the sensor had recorded. On the other side of the hole, there is extensive activity in the local internet bands. It does appear that this leads out of our maze!”

Just then the hand flew back out of the hole. Jon looked at it and then faced Sally.

“Bad news. The hole does not go anywhere now. It goes down a few hundred feet, then stops. For this opening to have been closed so quickly implies that we are under close observation. This is a significant data point.”

Sally looked down the hole, she could no longer see the light at the bottom.

“It tells us even more,” Sally added, “It tells us that whatever did this has to be quite important. I would guess that changing a subspace rift can’t be easy.”

“You are correct.” Jon looked at Sally. “You do well with what you have.”

“Now you're supposed to reward me with a treat.”

“I tend to overlook the fact that in spite of being very slow and hardware limited, you are capable of reason. You are still able to provide an independent viewpoint.”

“Ummm, thanks?”

“Ummm, you’re welcome?”

Sally laughed.

Losing a possible escape route was disappointing, but for some reason, it didn’t bother Sally too much. Maybe it would have been too easy or something. She looked back down the hole, the little light was still gone. She looked up at Jon.

“Well, this didn’t work out, but I did find another passage, so we can keep exploring.”

She was almost certain that Jon knew about the passage that she’d found, but who knows, maybe he didn’t?

Yeah, right.

While Sally walked over to the passageway Jon checked beneath the remaining computing boxes on the floor. He put all of the boxes back in place, except the first one, probably so they could check from time to time and see if anything changed. When he finished Jon joined Sally and they both peered down the unexplored tunnel.

“Any idea why someone would make this entrance so hard to find?” Sally asked.

“No. When the computing boxes were in their original positions, this door would have been virtually invisible.”

Sally was a little reluctant to walk down the unknown passage. She had an idea.

“Hey, can you tell if any of the other Sallys have been here?”

“The gravity event appears to have been very energetic. In this area, it formed an eddy which pushed the computing boxes back and forth, eliminating any traces. Perhaps I will be able to detect something further in.”

Jon entered the passageway, shuffling for a short distance.

“There are multiple traces. It is difficult to tell Sallys apart, but I am finding many of these traces belong to non-Sally entities, although I don’t have enough information to be able to identify them I am sure that these beings were companions for the Sallys, but I can’t conclude that all Sallys had companions.”

The evidence had to be really strong if Jon stated something this definite. It appeared that a bunch of Sallys and companions had used the tunnels. She looked around the big room.

“I wonder why there’s a big sign to send us here, but there isn’t another sign directing us down this passageway? Did the, um, being in this room tell them where to go?”

“No idea.”

They proceeded to proceed down the passageway in their normal order, the hand scouting ahead, Jon, then Sally trailing. The hand and Jon’s third eye provided light since the passage walls didn’t glow.

“I hope we aren’t attacked from the rear,” Sally said. “I'm almost certain that I all I could do is bleed all over any attacker. Maybe even causing them to slip and fall.”

“We touched on this before. Let me elaborate; above the lowest rating of intelligence, it is rare for there to be physical violence. Violence leaves the door open for retaliation and with the huge and varied range of available technologies, any battle would result in mutual destruction, along with extensive collateral damage.

“Violence is typically only viable if it is possible to manipulate events so that some other entity takes the blame, and any damage is contained. The use of the heavy to destroy our computer-based entity is an example. Something likely manipulated the heavy to cause the damage we saw, and that entity was probably protected by layers of cutouts and misdirection so it would be nearly impossible to lay blame on the correct party. Usually, these situations are so convoluted that the only way to have a chance of uncovering the truth is to involve the most advanced intelligences.

“Unfortunately, this rarely occurs, because these entities often have their own ongoing plans and schemes. It is a complicated state of affairs out there. Let me summarize: violence does happen, but the stupid do not last long.”

Sally guessed that meant that she wouldn’t be attacked, at least not by anything smart. That wasn’t exactly comforting.

She thought over what Jon had said, then asked, “If we are in an experiment and the heavy is paired with a Sally, and the Sally dies because of something the evil scientist does, and the heavy has a tantrum, and this hurts the computer guy, then isn’t it easy to blame the evil scientist person?”

“True, but we probably don’t have enough information. This may have been a single part of a long history of events. It is very probable that we will never know enough to understand even a fraction of what transpired.”

They marched on.

The passageway they were traveling through was different from the other hallways. It was more like an underground smuggler’s tunnel as it meandered back and forth, up and down, twisting around so that Sally would have been entirely lost, except that currently, there was only one way to go. To distract herself she tried to keep track of where they might be. In her real life, or more likely, her fake real life, she had a good sense of direction, although, she had to admit, her little town had a distinct lack of smuggler’s tunnels, underground passageways, or crypts. Maybe sewers, but, for some strange reason, she never had a need to explore them. Didn’t matter, trying to stay oriented kept her busy.

Ahead, the passage branched and Jon stopped. Sally stopped by running into him.

“Any idea which way to go?” she asked.

“No, I cannot find any indication that one trail was used more than the other. Odor, radar, echolocation and various other methods don’t tell me anything except that both trails may branch again as they go on. I will see if I can find any clues.”

As he said this, the sensor hand flew down the right-hand passage. Sally debated if that was a good enough hand pun to mention while they stood looking at each other.

Sally heard something behind them. It was a scratching that was getting louder. She bravely hid behind Jon. He was indestructible, after all.

After a moment the spider-rabbit ran by and continued down the left-hand trail.

Sally broke the silence, “Well that was…” Another spider-rabbit rushed past and went down the right-hand trail. Sally and Jon waited a moment.

They looked at each other, and then looked back down the passage that led to the computer room. Another spider rabbit ran by, went a small way down the right-hand trail, scrabbled to a stop, then ran back and then went down the other trail.

“Any idea?” Sally asked Jon.

“Nope.”

Jon’s hand flew back and went down the left-hand trail.

Time passed. Half a dozen more spider-rabbits ran past while they waited. Jon grabbed one as it went by and crunched it, then stuffed the body in one of the extra bags. “About time we investigated how these taste,” he said. Sally had worked on farms, she knew where food came from, but the spider part of spider-rabbit made her less than enthusiastic about trying to eat one.

They waited for a few minutes, but it appeared that the migration was over.

The hand flew back and then went down the first passage it had explored. Jon followed the hand and Sally followed Jon.

Jon explained, “The second trail is similar to what we have been following, it goes on with no branches for quite a distance. This one, on the other hand, has a number of branching paths nearby, and many of these paths are dead ends. I am going to investigate these dead ends and see if they are there for a reason.”

It took twenty minutes, or so, to reach one of the passages that Jon wanted to investigate. They passed several more branches before stopping at one that looked the same as all the others. Sally was trying to keep up her internal map, but the more branches they found, the harder it became. She at least kept a separate count of branches that split off to the left and branches that split to the right. So far there hadn’t been any that were obviously heading up or down.

Jon’s hand proceeded very slowly down the branch he had chosen, the lights and sounds indicating Jon was doing a very detailed set of scans. Jon and Sally followed. After a few minutes, they reached the end. The passage climbed a bit and ended in a completely flat wall. The sensor hand was carrying out a number of tests on it. Jon climbed up and added his own effort to that of the hand, attempting to discover what the flat portion signified.

After a while, the hand re-attached itself to Jon, and he turned to her. “I can’t find any indication that this has any purpose or goes anywhere.”

Sally was sure that if Jon could be frustrated then he would be.

Sally climbed up and waited as Jon edged by and went back to the lower portion. She looked at the wall. “I have no idea what I can do that you couldn’t,” she said to Jon.

She pushed, twisted kicked, and punched the wall, to no avail.

“Oh, great gods of this wonderful and beautiful universe please help us uncover the mysteries of this wall.”

Nothing.

“Well, this is disappointing,” Sally said. She took a bag of water from her belt, undid it, and sat down. As she drank she leaned back against the rough wall of the passageway. When her back hit the wall it swung away, and she fell backward, hitting her head on the floor and dousing herself with water.

She coughed and sputtered, then looked around. She was lying in the puddle her fall had made, on the floor of an atrium, roughly halfway between the shorter ends. The door she had fallen through was situated on the back wall, across from the windows.

“Shut your eyes and don’t move,” Jon ordered. “We have to figure out how the door works before we allow it to close.” Once her eyes were closed he carried out a thorough examination of the walls and door with all his bright lights, noises, and everything.

“You can open your eyes now.”

Sally did so and found Jon standing beside her.

“I can’t find any hint of a mechanism to open this door from inside the atrium. I propose we go into the passageway, close the door, and see if it is possible to open it again.”

Sally climbed back into the passageway and Jon followed, then pulled the door closed behind. He pushed on the wall where the door had been and nothing happened. A little poking around revealed that it wasn’t the intervention of the gods that had opened the door, but simply pushing on a certain point on the rough wall was all it took. Both of them became proficient at finding the proper spot and opening the door.

Jon turned to Sally. “I will go inside the atrium and close the door. You open it, and if that works I will close it again and see if I can open it from the other side. Wait five minutes and if I am not successful I want you to open it.”

Jon stepped into the atrium and shut the door. The passageway was dark. Very dark. Sally counted out a nervous five minutes and pushed the door open. Just as it opened a crack, there was a mighty crash and the door smashed closed. Maybe she was early, so she counted out another minute and tried again.

This time it opened. Sally peered through and broke out laughing. Water, mud, and bits of brush covered everything, including Jon. He just stood there, dripping. A mouth shaped hole opened in the mud covering his face. "This attempt was unsuccessful. I tried pushing, pulling, twisting, hitting, various energies, suction, and so on. I also investigated the region around the door, and even experimented on various other places in the room. There were no positive results. I did note your premature opening of the door, for a brief moment I thought we had succeeded.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Let’s exchange positions. Perhaps you will succeed where I haven't.”

Sally stepped daintily into the room, and stood aside as Jon squooshed past her into the passageway. When she pushed the door closed she couldn’t see any indication that there was a door, at all.

Everything was covered in mud, but there was one clearer part on the door area that had an imprint of Jon’s face. Probably from the suction test. Sally snickered. She would have paid to see that.

She got down to business. She tried hitting, pushing, kicking... everything she could think of. She screamed at it, prayed to the gods, and even tried another attempt at the hokey-pokey. Nothing worked. She was much slower than Jon, every five minutes he would open the door, and after twenty minutes she gave up.

Jon tried again but had no luck. Eventually, they just put a bag in the doorway to prop it open.

Sally and Jon looked around the room, which was nearly identical to the other atriums, atria... whatever. After Jon had cleaned the mud off himself, they began checking out the little end rooms and were in the third one when there was noise from the main room. They rushed out of the room in time to observe a spider-rabbit scrabbling out of the secret passage, dislodging the bag in the process. The door started to swing shut. Jon blurred into motion and appeared to teleport from where they were to the passage door, which he caught just before it closed. The spider-rabbit fled down one of the hallways.

“Well, at least we know how those things seem to appear everywhere,” Sally said.

Jon turned to her. “I think, for safety, I will stay by the door and investigate how it can be opened from the atrium side. You can sleep here and we can return to the arena in the morning,”

Sally’s stomach growled. She came down from the room and went over to Jon. “Any idea how we can cook the spider-rabbit that you caught?”

He pulled it out of the bag and proceeded to rip off the legs. There wasn’t any blood, and the legs looked like they had come from a really big crab. He handed them to her and told her to gather enough underbrush to make a fire. Sally had camped a few times with her aunt and uncle, so she had an idea of what to do. Ordinarily, it might have been difficult without a knife or an ax, but Jon could probably rip anything she found apart.

Sally decided on a place to build the fire and found it wasn’t difficult to pull wood from the local overgrowth. Once she had enough, she laid out the fire, then traded places with Jon. He spit on the wood and after a few seconds, it started to burn. Sally had thought he would rub two sticks together, or use a laser, or something.

Didn’t matter, whatever worked. They traded places again, and she washed the legs in the stream and placed a one in the fire. She didn't want to over-commit since it might take a number of tries to find a good way to cook them.

After a while, she pulled the leg out, using a couple of sticks as chopsticks. She tried to crack it open, then handed it to Jon, who broke it open. Sally dug out some meat, let it cool for a while, and bit off a small piece. It wasn’t burned, but even so, it was pretty bad. Tasteless and really tough. Eventually, she managed to swallow what was in her mouth, and when it didn’t come back up she repeated the whole procedure until she had eaten the meat from all of the legs.

She then went about her evening routine, settled into a reasonably comfortable area of the overgrowth, and went to sleep.

She had strange dreams. She was in a yoga class and while they did stretches, her instructor lectured on how to mathematically model a sine wave. The instructor was an attractive lady wearing a form-fitting and somewhat revealing exercise outfit, but Sally couldn’t remember her face when she looked away. It didn’t matter, it was just a dream.

The instructor started by explaining how to set a sample clock as related to the sine wave frequency, then went on to explain how to do a Fourier transform, and how sine waves were related to arbitrary waveforms. The really odd thing was it made sense and Sally understood everything.