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Chapter 22 by TheArchitect TheArchitect

Which one?

Stop sign again.

After the second input has been received, the door into the chamber split into two automatically, letting Jen inside. The chamber was rather spacey and mostly white, yet still much smaller than the first hall. The floor consisted of soft-ish blocks with a side of 6 to 7 feet that simulated uneven terrain and had many different grips sticking out all over the place.

"With the right equipment, it must be fairly easy to replace these blocks with... other blocks."

*SNAP*

It took one to snap Jen into full focus on the target. The signal was fairly late, so the key must have been deep in there. The girl ran towards the center just to cut some distance, so she could be closer to the key, no matter how quick she would be able to spot it. As she neared the center of the chamber, the lights on the ceiling got a little dimmer, and, quite abruptly, her advance was stopped, as if her belt was on a chain and she yanked at it real hard.

But there was no such thing. Nothing alien was attached to it, and yet it would not move along with her. Jen went as far as lifting her feet away from the ground, putting all her humble weight on the belt, and it probably started moving towards the floor, ever so slightly.

Once she was low enough to grab the floor grips, the girl was able to pull herself forward quicker, although it required more effort than before. It felt like the usually insignificant air resistance to movement was multiplied in regards to metal objects, and this one around her waist was valiatly resisting Jen's efforts to get closer to the key.

It felt like trying to move a large stone along with her, but still, she was progressing. There were several times when she though she saw some kind of recess that could be storing keys inside, but she took great care to not take a costly wrong direction, as the next input was also a 'STOP', which meant it was not getting any better.

Jen was tracking the intensity of snaps in her belt, making sure they were only increasing. Much to her concern, this increase was getting slower, until she traveled entire 40 feet without any progress. She kept looking for them hidey-holes and, as she turned her head around, she noticed an entire keyring rack sitting pretty on the back side of a regular uphill block. She could not see it until she was past it, but at least it was a straight line to the target.

When she was two blocks away, the belt slowly gave up its ability to hold her in the air, and she fell down on the floor. With no idea how much of an intermission she had, Jen took the opportunity to move her legs and give a momentary rest to her arms. She almost made it to the rack when the very snappy belt got back to being annoyingly immobile.

"Which one? There's, like, thirty there." — Jen asked herself. It was not that big of a puzzle though, she just needed to get her hand on the correct one. Soon enough, it was soon in her fingers, a small blue thing, and the snaps were gone, leaving ringing silence behind. About to quickly slide it into the keyhole and get done with this nonsense, Jen discovered that the key would barely move as well. — "Very funny and inventive. Fuck you very much."

Being that close to freedom and having to free herself so slowly was unbearable. Jen was able to get the two metal objects close by pulling the key with both of her hands, but there was sliding it in... and turning. Was it even possible to turn it under that stop field?

It was not. No way. The girl pushed and twisted until her fingers bled from the pressure against the thin metal of the key, but with a great degree of yelling and sobbing, she realized she had to get out first.

There were four exits from each side of the square chamber, but the closest one was on the opposide side from where she entered. At the same time, if the duration of this field was the same as the previous one, trying to get back to her door bore a serious risk of not making it in time. She was afraid to know what would happen in that occasion.

Which door to go for?

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