The Nexus Game

Chapter 1


     Eric became aware of several sensations at once. Something cold and wet lapped at his fingertips. His back felt icy and stiff, and a hissing, bubbling sound filled his ears. Eyes still closed and struggling to pull himself out of a heavy slumber, Eric drew his hand towards his face. His eyelids blinked open, and he focused on the drop of water that ran down his wrist and fell to his naked chest.
     Eric lowered his hand, and his eyes refocused on the ceiling—an angled metal plate with a single slit cut into the uppermost edge.
     “What the hell?”
     He sat up abruptly and regretted it. The ache in his head suggested that he should have moved more slowly, but that was only the beginning of what was wrong. This was not the bedroom of his apartment where he had fallen asleep. This was nothing like it. On all four sides were Plexiglas walls forming a closed tank in which he was trapped. The opacity of the walls allowed Eric to make out what lay beyond them. A mop and a bucket leaned against a far wall. It looked like a storeroom of some sort.
     The sting of cold water against Eric’s backside made him look down. Water had begun to flow across the metal tabletop on which he sat. He wore nothing but a loose pair of swim trunks.
     How did I end up wearing these, and…where am I?
     He spotted four jets, like those found in a sauna, at the base of the tank. They forced water into the tank in steady streams. The water had already filled the bottom of the five-foot by seven-foot enclosure and risen the four feet to the top of the table. Eric stood to avoid getting wet any further.
     “Son of a bitch!” he exclaimed. “This is not the weekend I had planned.” The last thing he remembered was a non-eventful Friday afternoon after his shift at the radio station. He had grabbed a burger on the way home, checked his email, and fallen asleep in bed while reading Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. So how did he get here? How did something like this happen?
     The rising water moved Eric’s thoughts along a more practical course. How was he going to escape? He considered the transparent walls and the metal roof.
     “Now what?”
     The only solution that occurred to him was to break the walls of the tank.
     Eric jumped off the table and into the water, letting out an audible gasp as he did. “Damnit that’s cold!”
     Wasting no time, he formed a fist and pounded on the Plexiglas in front of him. The wall yielded nothing but a succession of dull thuds. Eric turned to his right and swung at a dull reflection of himself—blue eyes and black hair—in the semi-reflective surface of the Plexiglas. His fists were not enough.
     There was the temptation to yell out, to call for help, but Eric thought better of it. Someone had put him there. And a person who had placed him in a situation like this probably wouldn’t suddenly turn around and offer assistance. Eric was on his own.
     Time to try something else.
     He turned and pulled at the table. Maybe it was loose, and he could use it to break the walls of the tank. It wouldn’t budge.
     Eric took a deep breath and dunked himself into the water so that he could look at the base of the table. If he could get the legs loose, then he could move it.
     Now submerged, he saw that around the edge of the tank there were strange symbols imprinted on a series of tiles. That was the least of his concerns, he thought. He could feel the jets of water pushing against him as he turned towards the table.
     The first leg of the table was bolted firmly to the bottom of the tank. So was the second. Eric resurfaced.
     “Shit! I don’t believe this,” he said, rubbing the water out of his eyes with his palms. The water was chlorinated. How considerate, Eric thought. If you’re going to drown someone, you should always make sure the water is germ free.
     He sloshed around to the other side of the table and bobbed back down under the water. The third table leg was bolted just as tightly as the first two, but as Eric turned to go back up, he noticed something that made him stop. Strapped to the underside of the table was a sledgehammer.
     That’s it! Was this some kind of sadistic puzzle? That brought more questions, but there was no time.
     The sledgehammer was fastened with two belts, one just below the hammer’s head and one at its base. Eric undid the hammer, and it sunk to the bottom of the tank while he went back to the surface for air.
     The hidden hammer suggested something important. If someone had provided a means of escape, then this wasn’t just a deathtrap; it was a test. But for what purpose? And why him?
     His breath recovered, Eric ducked back under the water and retrieved the hammer. He rose to a standing position again and steadied himself. The water had reached his midsection and was nearly to his torso. If the water continued rising at this rate, it would reach the ceiling in fifteen minutes, if not less. It also made swinging the hammer difficult. Eric swung at the Plexiglas, but the hammer rebounded with a dull thud, not much louder than the thumps Eric had made with his fist. He tried again with the same result.
     “You’ve got to be friggin’ kidding me!”
     Eric set the hammer on the table while he climbed back up onto it, then bent over to pick it up by the handle. Now he could swing better.
     He swung again at the wall with all the effort he had, managing to scratch it but little else. When one wall didn’t yield, he turned to the other side. With no success there, he tried holding the hammer upwards and jamming it against the tank’s metal cover. At least he’d been able to scratch the walls; the hammer had no effect on the metal ceiling.
     Eric’s breaths came quickly. Despite all the water flowing up around him, he felt hot. He looked at his hands and thought he saw blood trickling down the handle from his right palm. When he lifted his hand, he saw that it wasn’t blood at all but a picture of a long red skinny fish painted on the wood.
     Why is there a red fish painted on this? For that matter, why is there a sledgehammer in the tank if it’s useless? An inscription was carved in small letters under the painted fish, like a brand name. He had to clear his eyes and squint to read it. “Red herring,” it said.
     Eric dropped the hammer in disgust. It splashed in the water, flipped off the edge of the table at his feet, and sank to the bottom.
     For a second, Eric felt that all was lost and panic began to rise in his chest. His father’s voice came to him in a memory. “Panic makes you stupid,” Charlie had often said. Those words were the summary of what Charlie—Eric’s adoptive father who had spent his entire career as a police officer—had often said in the form of a lengthy lecture about how the flight or fight response shuts down the brain when just the opposite is needed.
     “Think!” Eric commanded himself. I’ve got to work through this. So…If somebody wanted me dead, they would have just killed me, right? There must be a way out.
     His eyes fell on the symbols at the bottom of the tank. “Maybe that’s the key.” Still standing on the table, he turned around to look at the symbols along the edge. There were five symbols at the foot and the head of the table, and there were eight on both the left and right sides. The images were rippled and blurry when viewed through the water. He would have to go back down.
     Eric stepped off the table and was immediately underwater again. He somersaulted in the water and dove to the bottom of the tank where, with the symbols only inches from his face, he could make them out clearly. He pressed on one, and it clicked downward and stayed in a lowered position. Eric pressed it again, causing it to pop back up so that it was realigned with the other tiles.
     They’re buttons! But there are too many of them. Twenty-six, if he had counted correctly. Eric had always been a quick study.
     Eric pressed a few randomly, and nothing changed. Running out of air, he returned to the surface. The water had risen so high that even when he stood on the table, it reached his forehead. There was little room left in the tank.
     As Eric treaded water, he felt threatened once more by panic. This time, he barely succeeded at resisting. There was no glibness or obscenity left in him. Now it was about determination. His mouth formed a narrow line.
     Focus! he commanded himself. If there’s any answer at all, it has to do with the tiles.
     He dove back under the water. On a hunch, he took a look under the table at the spot where the sledgehammer—the perfectly useless sledgehammer—had been. There, on the underside of the table, were four symbols.



     I have to memorize them and find them on the outside edge, Eric told himself. The problem would be made more difficult by his limited ability to see underwater. Yet the reassuring thought that he might have found a way to escape gave him a much needed boost of strength when he had thought his energy was all but used up.
     He had to hurry, but he also had to get it right. Eric stared at the symbols for as long as he could before running out of breath and then, once clear of the table, launched himself upwards with his feet to burst through the surface and gasp for air. There were only three feet to go before the water hit the top of the tank. Eric was keenly aware that there would be no way to breathe once the water got that high. The angle of the tank’s metal cover was such that he couldn’t possibly get to the single slit where the air came in.
     He had to find those symbols.
     Eric dove back down.
     He started at what he considered to be the foot of the table where there were five symbols along the edge of the wall. Jackpot! Three of the symbols he was looking for were right there. Finally, a bit of good luck. Eric pressed the three tiles into the down position.
     He turned to his right where there were eight more symbols, but none of them were the symbols he was looking for, so he swam to the head of the table.
     Looking from left to right, he saw that the last of the symbols he had memorized was on the fifth tile. He pushed it and waited, waving his arms in the water to keep a stationary position until he was out of breath. Nothing happened.
     Eric swam back to the surface. This time there wasn’t enough room for him to get his head fully out of the water. He had to tilt his head backward as far as he could just to get some air. Even then, water splashed into his mouth, causing him to cough and spit. The water washed over his face, and Eric had to kick harder to get back to the surface. He cleared his throat as best he could and took a final breath.
     There was only one other thing he could think of to try. It was his last shot. Eric kicked his way downward. On the floor by the head of the table, he released the button that he had pressed there. Then he swam to the other side of the tank and released those three tiles as well. He looked under the table again to confirm he had the right tiles and knew the right order.
     Turning around once more, he hit two of the tiles at the foot of the table. He swam to the head, pressed the single tile there, and then returned to the foot of the table to do the final tile.
     Suddenly, he felt a weird sensation as if he was being pulled upwards and then outwards. He caught a glimpse of the wall of the tank receding quickly into the floor. With a loud swoosh, the water poured out into the storeroom, and he along with it, leaving him panting and gasping on a watery concrete floor.