"Hi! I'm Walta. This is pretty much a social thing, right?"

"Nick," the other guy says simply, glancing around the room.

"Yep, pretty much. I'm Zahn as she said."

"Yep, it's a social thing, though I think some of the organizers are hoping to leverage this into doing personal interdisciplinary projects."

"Got any programmers? I've got a drone that needs to learn a little navigation."

"Shush, you, you even said you wanted to talk about other stuff tonight."

Zahn chuckles, "I am in fact a programmer, though I don't think either of our companions would be happy to have us spend the night discussing drone programming."

"No, you can exchange emails and talk about programming any time."

"So, Nick's in Aerospace Engineering, I'm in general Engineering, sounds like Zahn is in Computer Science, and you?"

He definitely trades email addresses with Zahn.

"I'm political science and linguistics."

"I am indeed in Computer Science, though I take a bunch of eclectic electives including some Poli-sci with her."

"I'm all about the science. Going to design spacecraft if I can swing it. Space is the Final Frontier after all."

"Well it's the next frontier at any rate. Whether it's the final one depends on how you define space and how flexible physics turn out to be. Regardless, that sounds pretty cool."

Alice taps Zahn on the arm and gives him a slightly exasperated glance. "I'm probably going to be in the government, maybe I'll be an ambassador some day if I can swing it."

"I thought you..." he trails off at her slightly more pointed glance. "Nevermind, I'm hoping to work for one of the bigger tech companies, maybe get into some deeper algorithms work or machine learning."

Eye roll. "I was using it as a colloquialism, yes. I'm experimenting with metal foams lately. See if I can't account to for some of the weaknesses. Particularly cost. Anyway, shutting up about that now."

"Gee, y'all are so ambitious. I'm probably going to end up as a mechanic unless something more interesting comes up."

"I don't really see myself as ambitious, I'm just pretty good at programming and I'm hoping to find an interesting job where I can use that talent. I'm not sure how much different that is from being a mechanic of some kind except how much society tends to value the role."

Alice smiles, "I think that many people, myself included, tend to aim high with something of a fallback plan. There is some ambition involved in that sort of aim, but ambition is more about how much you're willing to do to get there, than how high you set your aims in the first place I think."

"If you say so. I'm a bit surprised I managed to get into a half-decent college anyway. So that's one big step ahead of my original course."

Zahn opens his mouth slightly then closes it and shakes his head slightly before deciding on, "Let's get a table. I don't really know you well enough to know how I ought to respond to that. I kinda grew up being told I could accomplish anything and to some extent I believed that for a long time. You sound like you had a rather different upbringing."

"Please feel free not to answer if that's personal, Zahn tends to pry a little when things surprise him."

"Oh, my folks are hillbillies. Trailer trash. Whatever you want to call it. I'm not touchy about that, you don't have to dance on eggshells, people who'd judge me for it will judge me whether or not I'm open about it. I just want to live somewhere else when I finish here."

"You've got the talent to get out, for sure. I still say you should switch to Mechanical."

"I can understand that, my parents are nice people but I'm not planning to follow their path in life either," she paused. "What's the difference between mechanical and general engineering?"

"Specialization. I'd learn less bits-and-pieces of other disciplines and more kinematics, 3D modelling, strain analysis, and so on. But I'm not sure I want mechanical specifically, really..."

"A diverse skill set is often useful, although do make sure you're not taking dumbed down courses that are more 'diverse' without actually having more useful content. I made that mistake with physics back in high school."

"I've pushed my way past the stupid 200-level courses, yeah. Doing an interesting one on electronic circuits and signal processing this semester."

"Interesting, I'm kinda fascinated by the recent move towards using re-programmable chips for more efficient computation of neural nets, do you think your class will get to cover that at all?"

"...Nope!"

"Solid state chips are kind of a stupid idea, anyway. It's just that they're cheaper, and price is king for public business."

"So you think that re-programmable chips will be more common for other purposes? I would expect that specialized chips have some advantages in performing specific types of computation, at least on the miniaturization front."

"Speaking as if price is only a factor in public businesses is an odd assumption. Are you suggesting that this is a problem with time horizons for the investment or is there some more fundamental criticism you have of the way businesses tend to be run?"

"In general, a cheaper design or material source that fulfills the same function is often taken, is what I was observing. Why use a full ALU when a simple decade counter and timer chip would work just as well, be smaller on the board, and cost less?"

"If by ALU you mean something usefully turing complete, I think that depends a lot on how up upgradeable you plan to make something. If you're trying to be optimal I think that erring more on the side of upgradability and repairability is pretty wise, but I do understand why most businesses don't."

"I know folks in the consumer electronics business, and the big assembly plants go for cost effectiveness. You can't upgrade ten thousand microwaves in folks' houses. So you make them with the minimum they need the first time around."

"I wonder if you couldn't get some of the same scaling benefits by making things more modular. If you had a common set of standards and drivers you could switch components in and out. I guess most people aren't tech savvy enough to mess everything up doing that though." She chuckles and blushes slightly. "I'm not sure I am tech savvy enough to upgrade my appliances without breaking them. I could get Zahn to do it for me though."

"It'd also make it easier to install cover surveillance devices in people's homes. That seems like an advantage to you Alice."

Alice sighs, "Zahn and I used to play spy games when we were younger. He still likes to tease me about them."

"Spy games can be fun. They can also go too far. Have you heard of the whole modular smartphone thing? Doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I think the section of the population that wants to snap bits of their phones in and out is just too small to make it worth the overhead to do stuff like that."

"I feel like it works better for household appliances than something where weight and bulk are nearly as much a factor as cost."

"You won't see me lining up to invest in that, though."

"Mass production exists for a reason, ya know. When robotics gets better I can see more customization coming into our products, I suppose."

"I think I'd point more to 3D-printing than robotics."

"Hard to say what will be big in the future, isn't it?"

"Yep, the future is a much more reliable and unpredictable, final frontier than space." Zahn laughs.

Alice rolls her eyes but laughs a little too.

"As interesting as this stuff is, allow me to give a non-sequitor... What kind of music do y'all like?"

"I tend to go for sorta Melancholy stuff with an uplifting bent. So I like a bunch of Christina Perri's stuff and other stuff like that."

"I'm a bit of a stereotypical girl, I like musicals. Both the sillier Disney ones and more serious stuff like Wicked. I really love Wicked."

"Musicals are nice. I like country stuff, predictably enough. Though rock isn't bad. Green Day is a classic."

"I just listen to whoever the top slot on public radio is right now, I guess that usually means pop."

"Hm, my tastes end up including a bunch of stuff, on the rock side I'm more Evanescence than Green Day, and pop tends to be a mixed bag for me, a lot of it is too sappy for my tastes. As for country, I like a couple songs my Lady Antebellum and a few other artists I don't remember the names of."

"Johnny Cash is the one true country artist, I'll have you know."

"I'll have to check out some of his stuff then." Zahn chuckles. Conversation from there turns to preferences in tv, movies and games. They all exchange emails before parting to talk to other people at the event.

A few weeks later, Alice notices an invitation to a party at a new Frat House advertising state of the art facilities and challenging party games. Thinking back to the interdisciplinary event she emails Nick and Walta: "Hi there, Zahn and I really enjoyed talking to you a couple weeks back. I saw an invitation to a party on a university board, and it seems up your alley. Do you want to meet me and Zahn there?" She includes most of the text of the original invitation in the email.

I'll come but it had better not be the 'beer pong' style of challenging.

Sure, it'll be fun to chat again.

Alice coordinates their arrivals and the day of the party sees them entering a well lit lobby together. "Well this is intriguing." Off to one side are there tables with drinks and little slips of paper. At the end of the lobby is a single elevator door.

"Let's see what these say." He grabs a random drink and reads.

Each slip of paper has a descriptive phrase, some of them might be recognizable as song names, along with a corresponding twenty character alpha-numeric code on it. They are color coded. Red) Heartbreak World, White) Be Prepared, Blue) It’s Gonna Be Ok, Green) Children of the Sun, Black) Year 3000, Yellow) The Real World

"We supposed to pick our favorite song or something?"

"You know I'm not sure, I feel like the code is important somehow but I don't see anything to do with it. If this is part of a puzzle I think we should take one of each color of paper. It looks like the slips of the same color are identical." Putting words to action he drops a collection of slips into a pocket. Then he grabs a drink and takes a big gulp.

"If we have to pick I know Zahn's going to vote Heartbreak world, Be Prepared is from the Lion King so I'd go with that but I'm not strongly attached to it. Any preferences from the two of you?"

Walta shrugs. "Not really, no."

"I liked 'year 3000'," says Nick.

"Hm," she says then pauses to sip at her drink. "The only thing we haven't looked at is the elevator." She goes over and presses the call button. The elevator opens a moment later revealing a keyboard and a small display mounted to the back of the carriage, further inspection reveals that there are no floor buttons. "Well that's a bit weird. At least we know what the codes are for though. Walta, want to break the three way tie?"

"'Be Prepared' seems appropriate." She grabs what looks like juice and sips at it. "They certainly went to a lot of effort, huh?"

"They certainly did, the elevator is impressive." He fishes through his pocket for the white slip and once they're all inside the elevator he enters the code. The doors slide closed behind them and they feel an odd turning sensation instead of the normal up and down feeling of an elevator. "Do you guys feel that too, the turning sensation?"

"Is it not vertical? Dressed up as an elevator?"

Nick turns on an accelerometer app on his phone.

The accelerometer records no movement whatsoever. "That's weird," Zahn comments looking over Nick's shoulder, "Maybe it was something in the drinks? But, it didn't have any effects until the elevator closed and we took our first sips at different times. Some sort of binary drug is way above the level I'd expect for even the most elaborate frat party."

"Anything on the walls moving? Could be an illusion of some kind, doesn't have to involve the drinks."

Alice reaches out to touch a wall, "I don't feel any vibration. If there's an optical illusion it's pretty subtle."

"Or maybe they sprayed something when we typed in the code. Annoying. I didn't sign up for being drugged."

The turning sensation stops just after Nick finishes his sentence and then the elevator doors open revealing a large well appointed lounge. Off to the right side under some windows is a table with buffet trays. At the end of the lounge is a counter and a doorway dividing it from what looks to be a kitchen. Off to the left is another set of windows. Both sets of windows show overcast skies and the sides of what might be other buildings or other legs of this one angled away from them. "That doesn't look like the view I'd expect from looking at the outside of this building downstairs."

"...No cell signal. No GPS signal either. Did they put up a damn Faraday cage?"

"This is starting to really creep me out. That sensation cut out for all four of us at the same time right? Just before the doors opened. I can't think of anything that would do that, outside of like serious sci-fi stuff."

"Could have been microwave or infrared or something? But, no, you're right..."

Nick walks over to the windows and peers out.

Zahn and Alice follow. The window reveals a larger floor below them and a series of outdoor areas including a pool and a small apple orchard all surrounded by a white wall that looks to be a good twenty feet high.

"Yeah no, that definitely wasn't there before."

"Well Nick, you said you wanted to explore Space. One of my top theories at this point is that we've been teleported and aliens is a top contender for who might have teleportation."

"Having a mass hallucination or some kind of really clever fudging of space has better priors than alien kidnapping."

That said, he's definitely not touching any of the food, now. Do the windows open?

The windows are in fact flat planes of glass with no sign of any way to open them. The only exit from the room is a doorway at the other end of the kitchen. Zahn takes a deep breath. "If we're throwing ideas out there it could also be accomplished by utility fog, but if we're in utility fog we're basically screwed depending on how sophisticated it is. I'll err on the side of assuming I'm in reality unless I have a very good reason not to."

"...Let's not freak out too much quite yet. Maybe explore a little more. It could still all be some really elaborate, really creepy puzzle."

Alice takes a long deep breath. "Calm is good, lets hope there's some moderately normal explanation that lets us go home in the near future."

"Well, if nothing else this is exciting, lets poke around in the kitchen before going further though."

Nick takes some food. "What? I'm hungry. And it's not like the food is any more trap-ish than the elevator."

"That makes sense, if we're going to be exploring for a while it probably makes sense to eat before we go." Putting words to actions Zahn puts some food from the buffet on a plate and sits down. Alice reluctantly follows suit.

"You brought your backpack, Nick. Got a lunchbox or anything like that? We can bring along some of the more portable stuff, like sandwiches."

"No room. I brought along my drone, I was going to show it to Zahn after. May have been a very good decision in hindsight."

"Ooh does it have a camera on it? It would be good to know what's on the other side of that wall if we have a way to get outside. Also, do you have a notebook on you? Phones can do in a pinch but I'm not carrying a charger and it might be good to be able to write things down."

"It's got a GoPro taped on. I've got a laptop and a charger in the pack too. I need the laptop to run it still."

"I do have notebooks," Walta speaks up.

"Once we've eaten we should see if there's space in the refrigerator and containers to save the buffet. We don't know how long we'll need it to last us. Also, maybe there's more portable food in the cupboards like nuts, hand fruit, or cereal."

"If we're treating this as some kind of messed up survival situation, yeah." Munch, munch.

"I'd generally be inclined to try to find a way out rather than hunker down but if there are doors in that wall they aren't evident from what we can see so I'm inclined to expect we might be trapped."

"I think preserving the food is probably a good idea but, I also think it's a little quick to assume that we're trapped. Even if we are, this place feels too luxurious for me to think we're likely to starve here. Well, unless whoever built this place gets a sick kick out of irony."

"Let's just finish eating and check out that kitchen door. I wanna get home, paper's due tomorrow..."

"The food will keep. If we want to do any exploring outdoors it's probably better to do it sooner rather than later. So, agreed."

As they eat, Nick unpacks and assembles his drone from a decently nice case. It's clearly not a standard design - a fairly large all metal quadcopter with some strange joints and exposed wires.

He hefts his backpack back on and holds it in one hand as they make for the kitchen door.

Zahn opens the door, revealing an enormous hexagonal room. Four of the walls have hallways off of them while the opposite has a door like the one they came out of. The floor has a pattern with six nested spirals on it and in the center is a circular ramp that looks to lead down to lower floors. The ceiling is an enormous skylight that give a view of the overcast sky above. "Well, this looks to be a pretty big place. Any preferences on where we go first? One of the hallways, the opposite door or down the ramp?"

"Hm, clockwise quick investigations of the halls, I think."

Alice nods and takes the lead while Zahn hold the door. The first hallway has doors to six bedrooms. Each bedroom has a King size bed, a large desk, a dresser and a wardrobe. "Well this place continues to be ridiculously luxurious, each of these has to be more than twice the size of my dorm room."

"Not that student dorms are that luxurious."

"If this really is a frat house, bedrooms are kind of expected. But nobody's here, they don't look occupied. Next hall, bet it's the same."

"No bet." Alice continues to lead the way, and true to Nick's prediction the next hall has slightly different furniture but it is otherwise identical.

What about the other side's strange door?

Alice opens the door to reveal a huge bathroom, with a large deficit in privacy dividers. Mercifully the six stalls off to the right had stalls surrounding them but the sinks further on, the showers in the middle of the room, the jacuzi-style tubs off to the left and the laundry machines mounted in the back wall all lacked any kind of affordances for privacy. "Well, whoever designed this place didn't design it with mixed-gender residents in mind."

"Or they just don't have the same sort of nudity taboos we have."

"...Army barracks tend to be arranged like this from what my cousin tells me. Except no tubs and barely any showers. And the laundry machines, that's just weird."

"Laundry rooms are often near bathrooms in single family homes. Not generally in a place you need to walk past showers to get to but it has some similarity."

"But still, who the hell built this place?"

"At this point, a part of me is starting to come back around to the idea of aliens, but that might be my inner sci-fi fan talking."

"Hmmmm. Let's just check if the other halls are bedrooms and then see what's downstairs."

Nick is looking more nervous and scared than irritated, now.

The other two hallways mirror the ones they've already visited. If they travel down the ramp they'll have the option to stop at the next floor down or proceed further. "What do you think? Should we see what's at the bottom first or work our way down one floor at a time?"

"I think I'd rather check each floor as we go."

"Agreed. And we stick together."

The door directly opposite the ramp entrance reveals a medium greenhouse-type room lit by daylight bulbs. Right by the entrance there are a number of bins which when opened prove to be filled with fruits and vegetables. Walking through the rows they'll find familiar plants like potatoes, asparagus and tomatoes, and lettuce along with less familiar plants like the one with the orange berries or this other one with the large blue leaves. "Well this looks to be a renewable source of food, if we can figure out how to harvest and replant it."

"I wonder who or what filled those bins, something has to have been tending this garden before we arrived. I wonder if whatever it is will continue to do so."

"I have some concerns about the berries. Weird berries are frequently poisonous in the wild."

Nick has a hunch and peers around for evidence of robots. Strange boxes in out of the way locations? Wires and such? A small door somewhere?

There are in fact several large circles etched into the floor that on closer inspection might be hatches. If Nick thinks back he might remember similar etchings in other areas they've already explored, mostly on various walls. "What are you looking for Nick?"

"Does that look like it opens, to you?"

Zahn kneels down to look where he's pointing. "Maybe, not from this side, but if it's robots or something tending the garden I'd assume that it's opened by an automated mechanism."

"I recognize that symbol. It was on the floor of the kitchen and the bathroom too, and I think I saw it on the wall of at least one of the bedrooms. I thought it was just a decorative motif, you think it's functional?"

"Some kind of robotics seems like a possibility here. It'd be exciting if it weren't so strange."

"Yeah, on the one hand I hope that there are robots managing this garden, since I certainly don't know how to take care of all these plants, but it's kinda creepy imagining that robots can emerge into any of the rooms we've been in without much warning."

"I might be able to wrangle some plants. When you're poor and want fresh veggies, you make a garden."

"Put furniture in front of the robot-circles, if that's what they really are."

"That's true, I wonder what the purpose for them is. I mean here it seems like they might be for tending the garden but what would they be doing in the other rooms?"

"Maybe they're cleaning robots? This place is pretty big and we haven't seen any other people yet, we also haven't seen much dust accumulating anywhere. Now maybe this place is just brand new, but the other possibility is that something or someone is keeping it clean."

"Weird building, robots... I wonder if anyone else is going to show up in that lounge area. Probably, given the number of bedrooms."

"That's a good point, if the other codes lead to places like this that'd make, what, 144 bedrooms, it'd be awfully empty if we're the only ones to show up. Still better to stick together unless we find some way of communicating at a distance and maybe even then."

"This mess is making me wish I'd dragged my bugout bag along. Tch. Let's move on."

"Yeah, I wish I had my camping stuff with me too. Having my laptop would also be nice. It'd be fine if I had internet, most of my stuff is backed up to the cloud but without that, I don't have any of my notes, just what I have in my head, and a few things marked for offline access on my phone."

She's amused despite the tough situation. "You guys with your phones and your cloud. I have all my class notes right here." She pats her purse.

"I've trained myself to have a memory palace, so I'm mostly not reliant on having a computer at hand, though it is convenient. Besides, it's skills that are critical to me more than specific knowledge."

"Anyway, let's see what else is on this floor..."

The next door reveals a small library, along the wall they enter through there are six computer workstations. There are stacks along both the left and right walls with work tables and comfy chairs in the middle between them. The back wall is a massive window. "Speaking of computers..."

"I definitely want to come back here later, but if I let myself get sucked in now I won't want to leave any time soon, it can wait for now."

"Check that they work at least." He pokes a keyboard.

The screen comes on revealing an interface more like that of a tablet than a desktop computer to one side are four icons, labelled: Employment, Encyclopedia, Interfaces, and Settings. "Well that's interesting. I wonder what's up with the employment thing."

Walta pauses scanning book titles. "We just said we'd come back later, though. So, let's go."

"Fair enough." The next room bears some resemblance to a compressed hospital ward, there are beds with nothing various life-support looking monitors around them, arranged along most of the walls, the far left corner has what looks to be an infant intensive care unit, and the far right corner has a couple tables with the fittings for telesurgery. In the middle of the room are several other types of tables for things from dentistry to the sort of exam table you'd see in a physician's office. "Well, this would be really reassuring if I thought any of us knew how to use all of this. Maybe that telesurgery setup is run by AI though. I wouldn't put it past this place."

"It's almost as if someone googled what a human needs to be happy and healthy."

"There is a sense in which that's true, food shelter, health, entertainment... if the employment section is offering interesting jobs that's most of Maslov's Hierarchy right there. Any guesses on what other rooms we'll find?"

"Some approximation of a classroom."

"A gym, probably."

"Let's go see." Alice say leading them back out the door and to the next one. The door reveals a room with large tables with cabinets along the side walls. The far wall has a counter with a few sinks set into it. "Well this bears at least some resemblance to a classroom, I wonder what's in these cabinets." She says and walks over to open one. The first cabinet reveals a large collection of board games, subsequent cabinets reveal various types of art supplies, yet more games, various stationary, and a myriad of other supplies for entertaining people of all ages. The only notable absence is that of anything requiring batteries. "Huh, I'm not sure whether to call this a classroom or an art and games room, either way you aren't far off."

"...Nothing electrical. Have you guys seen any power outlets?"

"Oooh, that could be... Difficult."

"I think I saw some on the desks in the bedrooms, and maybe also a couple on the kitchen counters upstairs, but yeah, there's a lot less than I would expect from a building this high-tech."

"If there's power at all though, at least I can keep my drone charged."

"This room is kinda heavy on the art supplies, isn't it? Like a preschool."

"It also has a lot of games, and I don't think Settlers of Catan or Betrayal at House on the Hill are really aimed at that age group. Also, some of those art supplies look pretty high-quality."

"If there are power outlets I wonder if it's just there to recharge what we've brought with us or if there's somewhere we can find more devices that need it."

"...Why didn't we try the elevator again. Just back out, go home. Not that likely it'd work, I suppose."

"I do not trust transportation provided by this place."

"If you remember, there was no ground floor button in the elevator. We could try the codes for the other colors, but we have no guarantee that they'd lead somewhere as nice as this, and I wouldn't bet on any of them taking us back to the lobby we left from. I suppose if we're ridiculously lucky reentering the same code from where we arrived at might reverse the journey but that doesn't seem very likely to me."

She shakes her head. "Let's check the last three rooms and then go see that computer again."

"That sounds like a reasonable plan." Alice leads them out of the art room and into the next door. This one has mirrors on all the walls and a slightly springy floor. There are gymnastics and Yoga mats piled in of the corners and there's a few weights and resistance bands along one of the walls. "Well here's the gym you predicted Walta, though it has less equipment that I'd have expected and in some ways it more closely resembles a dance studio."

"The big lifting machines can be kind of dangerous, I suppose."

This room isn't really very interesting.

"No, not really. Onto the next." The final door leads to what's either a small movie theater or a large home entertainment complex. There's shelves of DVDs along one wall and a touchscreen remote on a table near the front. The table also has what appears to be a slot for inserting those DVDs in its front edge. "Huh, I wasn't sure what would close out this level but this is definitely not what I would have expected."

"Makes sense in hindsight. Library now, or keep heading down?"

"I think I'd like to peek at the last two levels but if it's another set of six rooms like this I'd like to see if the computer has some sort of map before moving further."

"Down we go, then."

The next level down is all one room there are a variety of empty storage containers, a bike rack, and doors leading to the outside in six different directions. The whole level is more window than wall. In every direction they look, they can see the tall white barrier that first suggested something was wrong. If one of them has really good eyes they might see small doors in the wall at a distance. Alice's eyes aren't quite that good. "Well, we're at least not trapped in this building. I think the outside is a bit bigger than the six rooms would have been. Do you want to try exploring outdoors anyway or stick to our plan?"

"I'd say go outside, spin up my drone and look around."

"That works for me." Zahn walks towards one of the doors. He opens it then scrutinizes it. "It looks like this will open from the outside. I wonder if one of us should stay inside just in case though. It'd be a shame to be trapped outside."

"We just have to check that it does open from the outside real quick. Takes all of ten seconds, go on."

Zahn goes outside and lets the door close. It opens for him easily enough. "That seems safe enough then."

"Let's just see what other fascinating locations await us."

Their immediate surroundings are a nicely manicured garden, there are some benches and some fairly tall trees, "Those look like they'd be fun to climb," Zahn comments. There are nicely textured paths one of them seems to lead to a pool visible in the distance.

Nick finally sets the drone down. It's big, for a quadcopter like this, and seems to be made of metal despite being very light.  With a little bit of fussing on his laptop it soars into the air as he presses 'R', streaming a somewhat low-quality video to the laptop screen.

The drone lifts off and flies above the level of the building they were just in. Looking down they can see the pool more clearly, and also a variety of other outdoor recreation areas: orchards, a tennis court, more garden areas, a larger vegetable garden, a running track, and an amphitheater. "I'm not sure if I want to investigate that staircase or see if the drone can go higher so we can see beyond that wall."

"Oh, she can definitely go higher." Up, up, up.

Beyond the white wall is a wider variety of areas. There are warehouses and what might be apartment buildings, and buildings with no clear purpose from above. Then beyond that there is another wall, this one seems to be laid out in a triangle. There's a wide border pattered in a number of colors before you reach this second wall. Yellow, orange, red, black and finally green. This border surrounds the walls on both sides but they can tell from the corners that they're in one sixth of a hexagon. "Whoever built this place really likes the number six. The image is getting pretty fuzzy at this point. I'm not sure how much more we'll get out of going higher but up to you."

"You're right. This is bullshit though. Your teleporter idea seems more likely by the minute."

"Or some sort of simulation, but it's a pretty detailed simulation if it can fake your drone."

"A city sized holodeck and teleporting are both impossible. There's got to be another reason, some way out. Any ideas, Alice?" I want to go home...

Alice hears the words as if she'd spoken them, and in the surface of her mind. Alice can feel the vulnerability the fear. I know, I do too. I wanted to be a spy not live in a sci-fi novel. She hiccups. "Did I say that outloud?" She swallows, and looks to the sky. In the distance the clouds are just beginning to clear.

"Noo you didn't. What on Earth..."

Nick points to the sky. "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. Or Earth."

Zahn looks where Nick is pointing and takes a deep shuddering breath. "Fuck, I never wanted to actually end up in Omicron."

"Not just Omicron Excalibur too if I don't miss my mark Zahn. There's some sort of telepathy thing." She shakes her head then remembers they're not alone. "When we were younger and playing games of pretend, Omicron was what we said when a game included sci-fi elements, and Excalibur was what we said when it included magic."

"Magic? Magic?! What magic?"

"Alice and I just had some kind of... Telepathic episode. Two mental sentences, with an undercurrent of emotion."

"Yeah, it was weird, it felt harder to keep secrets, less natural. I admitted to wanting to be a spy. Zahn likes to tease me about it but I try not to be open about it so as not to hurt my chances. I think it's alright to trust you, being stuck in this together."

"What started the... Magic thing? Could you tell?"

"It was, she looked into my eyes, and we were already feeling similar things. I don't know if the feelings part was important. Did you notice anything else from your end Walta?"

"Well, I was thinking what I 'said' pretty strongly... There might have been something. Want to try to do that again? Could be important, figuring out how it works."

Alice takes a moment to collect herself then nods. "Alright." She looks over and meets Walta's eyes. Can you hear me Walta the words carry an undercurrent of uncertainty, I wonder if I'll be able to do this with Zahn.

I think I'm hearing you.

Her fear is tangled with excitement. Oh wow, real magic. I pretended I was a fantasy novel character when I was a kid you know.

I wonder how deep this goes, can I send. She sends a picture of her childhood bedroom, but then the link gets away from her and there's a flash of memory of kissing someone intensely on her bed before she hiccups and the link breaks. She gasps for breath. "That can get intense."

"Yeah, woah, that was... Something." She blushes a bit.

"I don't think I'm going to try this, the way you're describing it."

"I think I tried to push too far. It wasn't that intense when we were just sharing surface thoughts, but I tried to share part of a memory and it transitioned into showing a related one I didn't intend." She takes a deep breath. "Zahn will you try it with me?"

Zahn sighs a little. "You know some of what you're going to see, are you sure?" Alice nods. "Alright." He takes a deep breath and then meets her eyes. At first it's just a wash of emotions, the loneliness Zahn feels most of the time, the slight undertone of excitement he feels despite everything in this place. The repressed attraction that's always buried a little ways beneath the surface when he's around Alice. He almost retreats from the link, feels the hiccup building but then he feels the same gentle acceptance that Alice always gives him, tinged with a bit of discomfort at the attraction and her uncertainty and fear at the situation. Thanks with that he gently breaks the link. His eyes are watering with the beginning of tears and he steps over to embrace Alice in a gentle hug. "Thank you."

Nick isn't sure what to say here. Either about that or the subtle looks Walta is giving him. He gives a polite cough. "Shall we explore the basement of our central building and then go look at the library again? I think reading what's been given to us is more important than ever now."

"Nick, it's really not that bad... And it ended voluntarily."

"Be that as it may, I'm going to wait and see if it turns you three into gibbering lunatics or something in half an hour. I don't trust this place."

Zahn breaks away from the hug and smile a bit. "Let's check the basement before we go back to the library. I want to have at least an idea of what's there."

Alice is also smiling a bit despite everything, and leads them back inside. The final level is actually two floors down height wise and is surprisingly not a hexagon. It's a big almost but not quite rectangular room. With a some couches and a few planters with flowers and bushes in them. One wall though opens up to show a long hallway. Across from them is a Radio-shack, next to that is an Eddie Bauer on one side and a Krogers Grocery Store on the other. "Alright, I have no idea what to even begin to make of this this time."

"Is it trying to approximate a mall this time?"

"I think so, but those storefronts are way too wide for a normal mall. I haven't looked into the stores, but at least this room is wider than it is deep and that wouldn't make economic sense on Earth."

"Perhaps it would if you had a surplus of hallway. And at least there are bikes, this looks like a long hall."

"There's the implication of bikes with the bike rack upstairs. I haven't seen the bikes themselves yet. I wonder if they'll be 'sold' in one of the stores nearby."

"I think this qualifies as more than six rooms, let's go back up to the library like we planned."

Up they go. He taps 'encyclopedia' first.

There is a search bar at the top and a list of categories below that range from fitting to perplexing: Animals, Cleaning supplies, Facilities, Medical, Plants, Security, Stores. "Most of those look potentially important, I am disappointed in the lack of anything like a map in that list though."

"Facilities. Or possibly security." He clicks security.

The screen changes over to a list with phrases like: Elevator Protocols, Mall Locks, Motion detectors, Restricted Areas and Servo Control. Frustratingly though each and every one of them pops up an error message saying access denied when access is attempted. Some of them append a message about needing to be a janitor or security guard, others make reference to Director level access. "Hm, maybe try one of the other sections?"

Facilities?

Facilities is slightly more welcoming, articles about Airlocks, Habitats, Home Complexes, Ivy, Mall Spirals, Medical Facilities, Standard Symbols and Teleporters will deign to be opened, though the articles tend to have redacted sections that prompt the same access denied messages when clicked. More frustratingly Enticing entries like Long-term Plans, Manufacturing, Map and Population Surveys refuse to open at all.

"Let's see if we can ask Employment how to become a director. They seem to be the equivalent of 'admin'."

The Employment section lists jobs as a Gardener, Janitor, Medical Technician, and Security Guard. If there's a way to apply to be a director it isn't visible. "Hm, Security Guard seems like the most useful of those." Opening that entry displays a list of prerequisites: Citizenship in the relevant sector. Background knowledge sufficient to pass entry exam. Filled Janitor position in the relevant sector. The last of those entries is highlighted and the apply button is grayed out.

"A computer is handing out jobs. Lovely. I could probably be a Gardener. Anybody willing to volunteer for Janitor?"

"I think that if Security Guard is a relevant Job Alice would be best at that. Nick, have you taken any biology courses do you make a hobby of looking at any medical stuff? I don't think I know anything relevant to being a Janitor but if we're on even footing for both of the remaining positions I'm willing to be Janitor."

"I have very little idea on medical stuff, but I might be in a better spot to understand it. I've worked on chemistry before."

"Maybe leave med tech empty for now? I don't know if we can drop jobs. We'll just have to hope we get a biology or pre-med student coming through the elevator, if anyone else does show up."

"Yeah, I'll go for the Janitor position. If it suggests that there's an entrance exam like the security position though I think I should try to crash course the cleaning supplies section and maybe also the facilities." Sure enough when they open the Janitor position it does mention a pre-exam. "Do you think I should just try?"

"How hard can it be? And it doesn't say there's penalties for failing."

"I'll give it a try." Zahn clicks apply and a screen pops up "Entry test will now begin, for Citizen 21. You agree to be monitored while testing is in progress. Any cheating will close further opportunities to apply for this position. "Maybe you guys should move back and I should be sitting at the keyboard. I don't know quite how it's monitoring us but I wouldn't want to cheat accidentally."

"I'll go take the gardener test over there. Nick and Alice, you two can poke around what parts of the encyclopedia it'll actually let us see?"

Zahn's test is a mix of easy if bizarrely specific questions like how many bedrooms are in a standard home complex. To questions about laundry and cleaning supplies, to questions about ideal temperatures for human habitation. The facilities questions he mostly manages to answer based on their initial skim of the facilities section and their explorations thus far. The cleaning supplies questions he mostly fails but occasionally figures out. At the end it deems him 'Moderately Competent' and accepts him as a Janitor (Provisional) conditional on attending remedial classes at a terminal two hours a day.

Walta's test mixes questions about the ideal growing environment for plants with ones on the nutritional value of the same, questions on farming and a variety of other related topics like the properties of fertilizers and pollination methods.

She has taken a crop science class as an elective! Her nutritional knowledge is kind of sketchy, but the rest should be okay.

At the end of her test she is 'Competent' and accepts her as a Gardener (Provisional) conditional on attending remedial classes at a terminal half an hour a day or more. It then presents her with a list of her rights and privileges. She can now access readouts on the past and expected crop yields from areas under her management and order different crops to be planted in the next cycle. She can also change the preferred ripeness stage for various plants and which parts of the plant are preserved or discarded.

Zahn's list of rights and privileges includes the ability to unlock doors in his area. It notes that upon being judged competent he will be able to switch some areas to be cleaned exclusively by residents, change preferences on whether beds should be made by the cleaning robots, reactivate teleporters in his area, assign new access codes to teleporters, and conduct debugging tests on the various locking mechanisms in his area.

She writes it all down. "Does being a Janitor give you any rights and privileges, Zahn? And how do you think the 'remedial lessons' will work?"

Poke poke, let's see if she can find this past crop readout.

"Apparently I'm pretty provisional for the moment, but I can already unlock doors. There's no reference to locking doors for anything but testing purposes but it also says once I'm judged 'Competent' I get to control the teleporters."

The crop readouts for her section list twelve orchards, six greenhouses, one farm, the home complex garden, and something called Centerpoint Island.

"Try reading about the teleporters? It might let you, now. And I bet Alice can take the security test."

She looks up Centerpoint Island in the encyclopedia.

Zahn brings up the entry on teleporters, apparently the physics are still not included at his access level but the mechanics are carefully enumerated, after a minute to take them in he condenses it for the group. "Alright so apparently the teleporters work on an addressing system. It says there are about one thousand elevators with codes assigned at the moment, though I don't see anywhere that would give me a list of those codes. Short-distance teleportation is effectively instantaneous and completely safe but interstellar teleportation takes almost exactly a minute and it is recommended that one consume a certain stabilizer drug before undergoing it or else you'll experience side effects including migraines and vertigo. I'm guessing that means whatever we drank was spiked with that stabilizer drug."

Centerpoint Island she is informed is part of Biosphere One the largest artificial biosphere on the planet which is accessed from Sector White. Specifically, Centerpoint is the largest island in the middle of the artificial river within that habitat.

"...Oh. God. So according to everything we can tell, we really are on another planet."

"And in another solar system. Mars does not appear to have been conveniently terraformed by friendly aliens."

Alice takes a deep shuddering breath. "I guess that's confirmation then. Walta, I wouldn't generally ask this so soon into knowing someone but given the circumstances do you want a hug?"

"...Yeah."

"Swear to god I will build a spaceship teleporter thing given enough time. Dammit."

Alice hugs Walta.

"I think it might be more efficient to see if we can dictionary attack the teleporters to figure out which codes are in use and then try all the codes. With less than 2000 codes that would only take a few days once we had the list. Once I'm a full Janitor I can reassign elevator codes, I think I might be able to use that as an attack vector if the system lets me."

"...Hack the alien tech. It could work. It's the kind of thing you'd think they'd defend against, a very basic security problem...  Does this mean the floor circles are teleporters?

Walta starts another short link with Alice when she pulls out of the hug, just because it feels good having that- immediacy to the sympathy and reassurance. Thank you.

"Hm, let me check." Zahn pulls up a couple articles. "No it looks like there's something about the size of spy movie air-vents running around the complex that the robots it calls servos can move through. They open inwards though so I'm not sure how effective blocking the entrances with furniture would be."

"They're giving you guys some privileges to control a few things, at least. But like I said... I don't trust this place."

Walta sighs. Nick barely trusts anything. "...I think I'm going to try to make sense of the different farms and greenhouses it's telling me we have. Maybe take a quick tour. Food supply's important, no matter what else we end up doing."

"I don't think we should split up, or at least if we are I should be with the person exploring. Otherwise you might get trapped behind a one way door. Alice, I think you should probably try that security test. Actually, Nick I know Alice makes a hobby of studying security systems but I didn't think to ask whether you did. I think she also took some first aid classes so depending maybe she'd be a better fit for medical, though I think security is the more important position to fill."

"I'd probably do better on a manufacturing test. No idea what security will even ask about."

"I can take another look at the greenhouse at least... Maybe start on a map if you'll give me that footage from the flight, Nick?"

"I'll try the security test then." She sits down to do that. This test asks questions about forensics, security systems, and close quarters combat. Alice has some trouble on the forensics questions and a couple security systems she hasn't heard of but otherwise does well enough to earn her the rating of 'Competent' and only a half hour of remedial course work per day. Her new abilities largely amount to the ability to lock and unlock doors as well as the ability to shut down a teleporter in her zone so it can't receive incoming passengers, and reactivate it at a later time. She also receives access to a list of elevators under her control, though not the codes for them. Some of them are suggestive like Biosphere One entryway, Centerpoint Island, White Mall Skybidge, and White mall Terminal Store. Others are a lot more generic like warehouses 15, 29 and 87 or apartment complex 2. She conveys this list to the others.

"Yes, we need to document where all these different references actually point to. What's the Terminal Store, has anyone read the article for that yet?"

Alice types a search into the encyclopedia, and in a moment says. "Apparently that's the name for the store at the end of one of the six mall spirals. It's located about 7 kilometers from here through the mall. The sky bridge is apparently halfway between there and here."

"Pretty big place... Zahn, want to start on your brute-force approach? I'll help, if I can."

"I don't have that access yet, I'm more remedial than Alice or Walta so I don't have all my privileges unlocked yet. I think I'm going to try digging into the encyclopedia, or figure out how to start my remedial lessons early, now that I'm not the only one who can make sure people don't get trapped."

Walta has written down what the computer claims is growing in each of the labelled crop areas. "...Okay, look, I've got to go clear my head. I'm going to walk around that outdoor area for a bit, then come back here, okay? One of you can follow me if you like." Shrug.

"I'd follow, but neither of us are allowed to unlock doors apparently, so... I suppose I'll try to poke the encyclopedia into giving up more information."

"I'll go with, it'd be nice to clear my head too."

Walta nods and heads out. She stops at the second floor garden quickly - "Just making sure what the computer says and what I actually see line up." - Before heading downstairs and outside.

Alice accompanies her in silence. Once they're outside for a little while she asks. "Do you want to talk at all, or just walk?"

"...I don't know. This is some really messed-up stuff."

"Yeah... I mean Zahn's a close friend but he isn't my only friend and I miss my family too."

"Is it weird that I'm more focused on the damn history paper I have due tomorrow than my folks?"

"I don't think so, it's an island of normality in all the craziness. Worrying about deadlines is just one of those things college students do."

"I don't think Nick will be happy here, if we're really quite stuck. He - he likes wide, open space, and having options. He'll take a train ride into some random town once in a while just because. And this place will feel like a gilded cage to him."

Alice sighs, "I'm not sure how much I can do about that. You know him better than I do, and it looks like there's a lot to explore, but yeah, it does look like there are limits on how far we can go, there's probably a way out into the wilderness but I don't know if that would appeal to him. If I had known I might have encouraged him to take the security position. Then he'd have more flexibility. Still, I'll offer to go with him if he wants to explore."

"You know what, I bet he will go out into the wilderness a lot if he can find enough junk in the... Mall stores... to make some kind of decent vehicle."

They come to the first orchard. Walta inspects the various trees and bushes. They all seem healthy and well cared for, if a little samey.

"I think we will, there's sixty kilometers of malls. I don't think it's going to be all clothing and food stores."

"Yeah. We already saw a Radio Shack."

"What about you? Do you think you could find a way to be happy if it turns out we're stuck?"

Sigh. "...Well. I got my wish not to end up in that trailer park. I guess it depends on who else comes through, and if this place throws any more nasty surprises at us."

"Yeah, I don't think I'll ever be a spy if we're stuck here, but maybe I'll actually go for the job that I pretend to want, be an ambassador to whatever aliens dumped us here."

"Be a bureaucrat and administrator. Glorified RA. We'll need to be at least kinda organized, if it's not just the four of us at the end of the day, and it seems like you might be good at it - it's a bit ambasssador-y. Speaking of which, think we should check the lounge again? See if anyone else arrived?"

"Yeah maybe, I wonder if I should deactivate the elevator. On the one hand most people would likely just enter another code, on the other hand it might save a couple more people from being trapped with us."

"Hm... There were enough of those paper slips that I think everyone would just enter other codes. And then other zones would be relatively overcrowded and this one undercrowded. Which could cause some kind of problems. I'd vote no."

"Yeah, probably not worthwhile." They walk back inside. "Do you think we should collect the guys on our way?"

"If we're going to be telling upsetting facts to a bunch of possibly-drunk party-seekers, I'd rather have the numbers, yeah." She pats a pouch on her purse almost subconsciously.

"I think I can protect us if it comes to that. But yeah, it'd be bad form to pull my knives on someone we're might be stuck with."

"We should lead with 'we're just as confused as you are'... Hey, link real quick?"

Alice makes eye contact. The emotion at the front of her mind is curiosity.

Nervous confidence. I have a gun. 9mm. Not loaded right now. I know how to use it. I won't unless there's about to be blood spilled anyway, extreme circumstances, but I do have one.

Aaaand can she bundle up and send her intuition about how long it takes/risky it is to load-aim-fire in various situations?

Alice responds with some mild surprise before she sends a sense of where all the knives secreted around her body are. Two on the inside of her thighs one in her right boot, and the small one disguised as a hair ornament. She also sends how long it takes her to get at any of them.

She nods before breaking the link. "Good to know we understand each other, yeah? How much you want to bet either of us is better at defending ourselves than those two guys put together?"

She laughs, "Zahn indulges me on occasion so he isn't completely untrained, but I'm a far and away better than him. I can't speak to Nick."

"Wouldn't surprise me if he had hidden depths in that direction, but he's never talked about it. Offered to go shooting with him once, he said no. Anyway, let's go see if they've made any progress."

Zahn as it transpires has figured out how to enter the lessons system, it's under the interface section. He's busy learning about stain removal.

(Nick is randomly trawling the bits of the encyclopedia he can actually view, copying interesting sounding tidbits into his laptop)

"Having fun with that, Zahn?"

"Not really, I mean I guess it might be potentially useful at some point, but I don't really expect to urgently need to know this."

"Yeah, I was being sarcastic. Anyway, I think we should all pop upstairs real quick when you two are at a good point for a break. See if anyone else has showed up, explain things if they have."

"Sure, let me just get to the next checkpoint, I think it'll be another minute or so."

She goes to have a quiet conversation with Nick. "Hey. You're on the edge of freaking out, I can tell."

"Hardly. I'm just - really annoyed at our shiny new alien overlords and trying to think of what they want."

"There's a good chance that all this craziness, all the wrong of being kidnapped and how things are laid out, is because they're just not good at understanding us. Not that they're necessarily hostile. The links, too, I've done several. I don't feel any different, besides wanting to share a little more in that exact moment. I think - they're going to be helpful if we have to live here."

He sighs. "Forgive me for trying to subvert what I think is some kind of alien manipulation. I- It cuts off if you get too stressed about it, yes?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." He looks up. The deep carpet of anxiety, tension turned to purpose, nearly makes Walta stumble. She feels a well of sympathy. And then Nick hiccups, ending it, blinking rapidly. "Well then! Let's go have a peek at our hypothetical newcomers."

"Alright, all done." Zahn stands up and they walk back upstairs and open the kitchen door.

There are five people in the lounge - One of the guys is holding a beer bottle, and one seems to be some kind of sports player if the muscles are any indication. The two girls are chatting over nachos in a corner.

Buff guy says, "Hey! How's it going? You guys the organizers? Those were some pretty sweet special effects, but I gotta ask, was there anything... Iffy in those drinks?"

"Actually... we're guests like you. I don't know if you've looked out the window but the sky is a bit greener than you've probably come to expect and there's some other evidence that we're not on Earth anymore."

He nods and winks. "I gotcha. This is part of the puzzle, right? Like an Escape The Room?"

"As much as it's hard to believe at first, this is tragically and unfortunately real."

"...Alright."

The last guy, the best dressed person here, says, "Then present your evidence. The elevator ride and the sky itself could be some kind of elaborate screen. Illusions can be very powerful. Do you have anything else?"

"Well, the shape of the building is different, there's a large wall surrounding the building, we now have telepathic powers, and the computer system has an encyclopedia with entries that are strongly suggestive of not being on the same planet."

He scoffs. "Telepathic powers."

One of the girls in the corner replies, "Naaah, it's true. I felt it earlier. Mina, you felt that right?"

"I think so. But it might have just been the weed."

"It took us a little bit to discover it but it's pretty easy to do once you know it exists, it works based on eye contact."

They stare at each other for a second, then simultaneously blink and say, "Woooah."

"That's creepy. Cool-creepy, not sketchy-creepy. Dale, I think they're telling the truth. Here, look at me."

"If I try this farce and it doesn't work, can we move on?"

"Yeah, yeah, just look."

They link. Dale hiccups and says, "...I guess I have nothing to say to that. Um. Do you four know how to get - back?"

"Unfortunately, no. Zahn has an idea that may or may not work but it's going to take some time before he can even try it. Otherwise we're stuck with a bunch of long shots. Nick wants to try to learn enough to reverse engineer interstellar teleportation."

"You're engineering majors? ...I don't know how well any of us could help with that. Law, business administration, history, geology, accounting."

Suddenly these guys' festive spirit seems to have been dissipated. 

"We should make introductions. I'm Nick. I've got a lot of studying to do before I can even begin to try things, but I'm going to try things."

"I'm Walta."

"I'm Alice, I'm political science so I'm no more useful to an engineering project than you."

"I'm Zahn. I'm computer science, so it's possible that if my first idea falls through I'll manage to find a security flaw with the computers, but that's not my specialty so don't hold your breath."

The two stoners introduce themselves as Mina and Grace, and complain that this is "Such a pooped party." The skeptic is Dale, the jock calls himself Arch, and the drunk guy is Joe.

"...If we're going to be stuck here, I'd like you four to explain everything you've found out so far. What you did, why you did it. I don't want anybody to trigger something by being hasty."

"Chill out, Dale. They got caught here same as us. Jesus."

"I'm just watching out for us."

"Alright, I'll try summarizing feel free to ask more detail if something is confusing. The building we're currently in is called a Home complex, it has 4 levels. We're on the top level here which in addition to this lounge/kitchen area has 24 bedrooms and a large luxurious but somewhat lacking in privacy bathroom. The next level down has a Library, a Medical center, a Movie room, a games room, a dance studio, and a greenhouse. The library is where you can access the computer system from. The next floor down from there has exits to the outside. The basement lets out into a massive mall that has a pretty wide variety of stores. We haven't really explored that yet."

Mina suddenly looks attentive. "Do the stores have, like, employees? Or was there just stuff lying around with nobody watching?"

Arch looks concerned. "There were about a dozen other people with us. We were going to use three different codes for the trip and see what happened... Think there's other Home complexes?"

"At least if we're gonna get kidnapped by aliens," Joe suddenly says, "They're treatin' us pretty okay if there's really all that stuff."

"I don't think that there are employees in the stores but we haven't actually explored the mall at all, so anything's possible. According to some things we've read the Mall is the way to reach the other five home complexes, but it's a six kilometer trip. Nick did you figure out where the nearest bike store is?"

"It's actually only a couple hundred meters bridgeward from our mall entrance, apparently. There's a few more down our spiral - oh, they're laid out really stupid. Six long, long, long hallways. They only meet at the center. I guess the aliens have a nonstandard view on mall architecture."

"Guys," Mina says, "I'm gonna go find a bike and then explore the mall. Save some chips for me, yeah?"

"I'll show you the way, do be careful, I don't think there's anything all that dangerous in the mall but cell phones aren't working so if you get hurt there isn't going to be anyone around to help you for a while. You might want to bring a friend with you. Also, if you see see any elevators either don't open them, or write down the code. We don't have a way to change the ones in our spiral yet and we won't be able to change the ones in the other spirals any time soon."

"I'm too stoned to remember codes and stuff. I just wanna go shopping for free. Chance of a lifetime, alien mall. Grace, why don't you come with?"

"You're way too excited about this. Why aren't you freaking out?" Grace looks nearly in tears.

"Well, I could cry or I could go shopping... Show me the bike place please."

"Sure... does anyone less stoned want to go with to um, make sure nobody gets stranded alone?"

"I'd volunteer but drunk isn't better." Joe looks miserable enough, at least, like he wants to sober up.

"...I'll go," Arch volunteers. "Can't let Mina hurt herself, and I can definitely keep up."

"Alright, do you have something to write down codes in if it comes up? Anyway, this way." He leads them out of the room and down the spiral ramp.

He shrugs. "I'll start a text on my phone."

Down they go. 

Halfway down Mina freezes. "Wait a minute... Oh man, I bet I can't get more weed here. Wait. Unless there's a Green Man store somewhere around. Phew."

"I haven't checked for that specific type of store but there's sixty kilometers of mall so I wouldn't be surprised. Also, Walta has managed to get the computer to put her in charge of the gardens around her so that might be something she can tell them to grow."

"Yeah? I don't expect folks to let me grow that stuff easily, I'll ask though."

Arch sighs. "Just remember I don't like the smell and only smoke it in your room or outdoors or something. And I really hope you can get us all home, Zahn."

"I hope so too, ideally, we'll be able to go back and forth, this place has tech that could jump Earth forwards by decades. I wish I know who made it and why though."

"Makes sense." They reach the bottom. "Arch, old buddy old pal, would you terribly mind fetching a couple bikes from that bike shop over yonder? You know I'm nowhere near as fit as you."

"Sorry Mina, but you're not that out of shape. Thanks for showing us down here, I think we got it now."

"Sure thing." Zahn heads back upstairs.

While they were gone, Nick described his plan to get supplies from a few hardware stores he read about on the terminals and build crude privacy dividers in the bathroom. Dividing each section halfway between male/female, with the laundry machines shared. "Could use some strong arms to help do that, but it seems like the number one quality of life improvement we need."

"That'll certainly be nice. It hasn't been long enough that I've wanted to shower very much but the other option is basically having shifts."

"And having an 'occupied' sign for the whole place would be cumbersome."

"Definitely, especially now that there's more than four of us."

"Gonna be more. There was a Facebook group for this 'party' with like a hundred 'accepted'. Hope we got enough rooms. Are we going to need to elect an RA or something...?"

"I think I want to see the computers," Dale decides. "Mind showing me which room that was?"

"There's at least one supposed 'apartment complex' in the white section of this place so I think we can find a way to manage. I'd be happy to take you. Before we realized there were more people coming we claimed three of the four 'jobs' that the computer is offering, the last one is for a medical technician, do you think anyone in your group would be well suited to it?"

"Not really. I might be able to study for it. Or perhaps we'll get a med student in the next hour or two."

"Yeah, that's what we were thinking. If it becomes important we can cross that bridge, apparently both Zahn's Janitorial position, and my security position let us supervise simple medical care in the medical room."

"What, will it not even give us aspirin without that? Seems a bit iffy." He's looking around suspiciously at everything.

"I'd assume you can find Asprin, and probably harder stuff in one of the drug stores in the mall. The medical facility will do things like treat serious injuries or diseases."

"Hm. And I guess you three will keep your jobs even if someone better qualified comes along 'cause you got here first?"

"Well, as far as I know there's no way to quit the jobs once you take them. We can look into it if someone is is especially qualified as a Janitor but the interface really liked Walta as a Gardener and me as a Security Guard."

"I see. Alright. Let's just try and make the best of this..."

Alice finishes walking him to the library and shows him how to use one of the computers. On the principle of not leaving anyone entirely alone, she sits down at another computer and accesses her own training classes.

He tilts his screen away from her.

Alice rolls her eyes, but settles into learning about sci-fi security systems. After she finishing her lesson she looks up the stores a couple of the mentioned items are sold at.

At one point the guy tries to call someone on his phone, but scowls. "Right, no signal." He runs upstairs and returns with Grace, and they talk quietly, pointing at the screen.

When he's distracted again, Grace makes eye contact. Irritation and apology. 'Dale's response to shit like this is growling at everyone, he's trying not to break down, doesn't mean it really.'

Alice returns a feeling of exasperation, which morphs into understanding. This is hard for all of us She breaks the link, "I just remembered since the four of us were together when we first saw them but we should show you the symbol guide that's in the computers. Some of them seem less important like water, advancement, or garden but there are also symbols for lethal and moderate danger, as well as one for one way doors. You should probably memorize those last three."

"Oh, wow. Should make a cheat sheet and put it around. Are there printers? I like linking, at least. It's, like... I don't know I like it."

"I haven't seen a printer but we might find one in the mall. I think there's at least one computer store, if nothing else there are definitely notebooks so we can write down cheat sheets. I think Walta copied it into her notebook."

"She said there's art stuff over there somewhere. I used to do art. I could do nametags and cheat sheets on all the first floor exits, on the ramp downstairs. Anybody we miss upstairs sees them..."

"That sounds like a pretty good idea, there's definitely tape and paper, I don't know if there are nametag, but maybe we could make lanyards or something."

"I meant for, like, claiming bedrooms. But yeah." She shakes her head. "Arch will be... I dunno what Arch will be. He's a mystery sometimes. But he's definitely not playing in the tournament next week at this rate."

"No, I don't particularly expect we'll be out of here that quickly. I hope we will be, but I don't expect it."

She sighs a bit. "I can try to keep Dale chill. Don't know that it'll work, but..."

"I expect we'll all have our hard moments in the next few days. As long as, none of us break something important or hurt someone else badly, I think we deserve a bit of slack."

"Man, maybe I should give everyone bits of my stash. It'll suck later, but weed keeps you chill." Shrug. "I'm gonna go work on the cheat sheets."

"It's one of the other doors on this floor. I think you can find it. Thanks but no-thanks on the weed."

"Suit yourself."

Walta comes into the library with a sigh, and signs in to whatever lessons the computer thinks she needs.

The computer wants to instruct Walta in how the seasons are different on this planet, some features of tropical plants and the uses of several plants she's never heard of. After Walta has settled in, Alice flashes her a quick smile.

She nods back. "That guy Joe said he thinks a nursing student was gonna use the White code. Apparently lots of people are hanging out in that lobby back on Earth, waiting for the organizers to show up."

"Huh, I don't know whether to hope he comes through or not. If we're trapped here it might be important to have the full range of medical systems unlocked but I don't know if that's worth another person getting trapped with us."

"I think we should explore the outdoors a little more. Work on a map, like Nick said. If we're going to be living here..."

"Yeah maybe, I think either Zahn or I needs to go with anyone who's exploring outdoors, so there's a degree to which exploring the mall is safer and easier but otherwise yeah, probably a good idea."

"We could find a camping store and set up tents outside the whole complex wall and stash food and water there, and then make sure to check all the doors at least once a day."

"I think that as long as whoever's exploring pays attention to the symbol that indicates one-way doors and doesn't enter those that should be fine. I'd feel better if we had like walkie-talkies or working cell phones though. I suppose it might also work if there's a building outside the wall with a working teleporter that anyone can get into."

"We don't know enough about this place yet, is the problem."

"Yeah, that is indeed the problem, still the fact that danger is marked with symbols and we have warnings for things like one-way doors makes me think we can manage."

Sigh. "Well. I still think we'll need someone to take nominal leadership sooner or later. People are calmer when someone looks like they know what's going on. Even if others kinda resent not being the one in charge."

"I might be able to manage that but I've never managed anything more important than a student club. I suppose we might just put it to a vote. The issue with voting though is that we don't know how many more people are going to come through."

"A simple vote for most things works if we don't end up with more than thirty or forty people."

"Oh, I meant for picking a leader. I think there is an advantage to having someone able to make a decision if we're ever in a rush. I think that's especially important if we decide to explore anywhere marked as dangerous."

"Hm." She turns back to her studying.

Alice turns back to her own studying, at the next convenient stopping point she looks up a store likely to have walkie-talkies and adds it to the list of stores to visit when she gets around to visiting the mall. Then she resumes her studies.

"This floor plan look good for the privacy dividers in the bathroom, Zahn? As a first draft, anyway - I'll talk to others and take measurements and stuff."

"Yeah, I think so. Probably good to get it set up sooner rather than later."

"Yeah. There's a few hardware places I can go scout, see what's there. Might have to drill holes in the bathroom floor here and there." He shrugs.

"Huh, just be careful about drainage, we wouldn't want mold growing somewhere we can't easily get at it."