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Ryan pulled the piece of paper off the door to the room Rachel was locked in and read it out loud. “Congratulations on diffusing the bomb, unfortunately that triggered the release of a deadly gas into the room behind this door. So Rachel only has a few minutes to live unless you can open this door. In order to open this door you need the eight digit combination. That is the only way to open it. You can only key in the combination once, if you get it wrong the door will never open. To work out the combination all you have to do is correctly answer four questions about the twentieth century, the last two numbers of the year that is the correct answer to each question make up the combination. Come on, everybody enjoys a quiz”– Ryan read as quickly as he could. “Rach did you here all that?”
“Yeah, I sure hope you guys are good at quizzes.”
“We’ll be doing our best”– Ryan replied then pulled the piece of paper off the door and turned it over to find the questions.
“What year was Martin Luther King Assassinated? Sixty-eight wasn’t it?”
“Yeah”– Lori now with her asthma almost completely under control, replied confidently.
“I think so”– Shannon added.
“Sounds about right”– Lee said.
“What year did women get the vote in the USA? No idea.”
“1920”– Shannon said quickly without the merest hint of doubt as she held her burnt hand and inspected the damage.
“Sounds good to me”– Lori said.
“Don’t look at me”– Lee said.
“Being proud to be a feminist has finally paid off”– Shannon said, with slight hint of a smile.
“What year was the Manhattan project started? I’m thinking early forties.”
“Oh wow I was reading about this the other day, it’s 1941”– Lee said with joy and was pleased with himself in the sort of way someone is when they contribute to their team in the pub quiz, momentarily forgetting the life or death situation he was in.
“All right then last one. What year was the Berlin Wall knocked down? Virtually certain it’s 1989.”
“Thought it was 1990”– Lori said.
Neither Shannon or Lee was too sure and Rachel wasn’t sure enough to help them out.
“Oh wow, don’t do this to me”– Ryan said. “I was virtually certain it was eighty nine, until you put ninety in my head, the poison of doubt.”
“Sorry, if you are sure it’s eighty nine then put that in, I’m just saying if I was on my own then I’d have said 1990”– Lori looked really apologetic.
“Don’t think I’ve got much time guys”– Rachel shouted then started to cough.
“Shit!” Ryan said then started typing in the numbers, 68, 20, and 41. Closed his eyes to compose himself, 89. Waited for what seemed like an hour to him and the other four. Green light showed on the lock panel then there was a joyous unlocking sound. Ryan pull the door open as fast as he could and Rachel came staggering out, Ryan slammed shut the air tight door as soon as Rachel was out.
Collapsed on the floor and coughing but Rachel was very much still alive. Other four breathed a huge collective sigh of relief and went over to help Rachel out.
“Well there’s four answers I’ll remember for the rest of my life”– Rachel said with a huge grin once she had controlled the coughing. “Which was it eighty nine or ninety?”
“I decided to trust my first instinct, it was eighty nine. In a normal quiz I would have been so confident it was eighty nine, but when somebody’s life is on the line then there’s a massive difference between confident and absolutely sure.”
“Well thank you for trusting your instinct, I’ll never accuse you of being involved in a murderous plot ever again”– Rachel said then gave Ryan a big hug.
“No worries, don’t kiss me though, my mouth will still taste very much of blood.”
“What?”
“Long story honey”– Shannon said, let’s just hope we’re all alive long enough to tell it. “So this guys killed Mick right in front of you?”
“Yeah he left the body in there as well”– Rachel said immediately reverting to sad and distressed mood.
“So have you seen this guy? Who is he?” Lee asked.
“No time for explanations right now. Don’t like breaking this to you guys but he left five mercenaries outside somewhere, if the bomb didn’t kill us, they were the back up plan.”
“Oh this is getting ridiculous”– Lee said in a most exasperated fashion.
“No it isn’t, it’s been ridiculous for quite some time now. Let me guess these mercenaries are going to ask each of us a riddle or a general knowledge question and if we get it wrong the shoot us dead”– Ryan mockingly embraced the situation they were in.
“We need a plan guys and real quick if we are going to survive five heavily armed mercenaries”– Rachel said.
“Plan or miracle, one of the two”– Ryan said.
“No point waiting for a miracle, lets get to work on that plan”– Shannon suggested.
“I think waiting for them to come in here would give us a better chance than us going out there”– Lori added.
“Right, so lets look around and see what we can use”– Shannon said as she seemed to be putting the recent trauma of the acid behind her and was getting back to her calm, calculating self.
A quick search through the kitchen enabled them to find one large bread knife and a couple of metal pans that could be used as weapons. Wandering around the main room where the bomb was Shannon noticed a large rug and the fact that the floor boards were quite loose. She fiddled a little with one of the floorboards and pulled it up to reveal a cellar.
“Oh hang on a minute”– Ryan could see that a plan was forming in Shannon’s head. “Tell me, please tell me that you are not thinking of the old putting the rug over the hole in the floor.”
“Not going to lie to you, I am thinking just that”– Shannon replied with a smile.
“Oh wow, that is crazy”– Ryan said with slight smile of his own and a shake of his head. “In fact”– Ryan clicked his fingers then pointed at Shannon, as his smile got broader. “It’s so crazy that I like it, I’m excited by it, I think it’ll work, lets do it!”
“Cannot believe we are about to do this”– Lee said as he, Lori and Rachel looked on at Ryan and Shannon’s discussion.
“Well I can’t think of anything better”– Lori admitted.
“If we do it quite close to the door, so they are bound to walk over it. Then we can wait for them downstairs”– Shannon thought out loud.
“With our knife and pans”– Lee added, still not enthusiastic about the idea.
“Yeah exactly”– Shannon said.
“I think maybe Lee and I should stay up here in case one or two of them don’t fall, you ladies can have all the weapons downstairs”– Ryan suggested.
“Sounds good”– Shannon agreed. “So are we going to do this?”
“Let’s get on with it”– Lee reluctantly got on board with the plan. “Surely they are not going to wait too much longer.”
Picked up five floor boards and put the very large rug over the area.
“So who wants the knife?” Rachel asked. “I’m not sure I could kill anybody, not matter how evil they are.”
“I’ll take it”– Shannon said.
“You might want to take the acid down there as well, if one of you pours that over them as soon as they land then that will definitely slow them down a bit”– Ryan said.
“Good call, wow you do have a nasty streak”– Lori said.
“I’d like to think of it as a strong imagination that is just reacting to the situation I’m in.”
“You believe that if you want”– Lori replied.
“Seriously everybody, this is an extreme situation and that calls for extreme behavior. I know none of us are used to killing people, but make sure you remember it’s kill or be killed. If they get a chance to kill you, they won’t hesitate, we can’t afford to either”– Ryan said.
“I’m sure survival instincts will take over”– Lee said.
The three ladies positioned themselves in the cellar around the area beneath the hole, Shannon with the knife, Lori with the acid and Rachel with a very sturdy pan.
“So you really think this plan is going to work?” Lee asked Ryan.
“Five mercenaries with machine guns against three ladies armed with a bit of acid, a knife, a frying pan and two completely unarmed guys, only one of which has any fighting expertise? Clearly it’s a plan that even Custer would have thought was reckless.”
“We heard that!” Lori shouted.
“Don’t worry ladies, just reverse psychology to motivate you”– Ryan said then shook his head at Lee. “Anyway I think us two need somewhere to hide, the only thing we have to fight them with is surprise.”
“I’m thinking if we move all the containers off that table then bring it nearer the door and put the cover back over it then we could hide under the table”– Lee said.
“Now you are really buying into the craziness, I like that.”
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