The Test
Cho
The day of the exam, the alarm did not ring at all. Luckily I was used to getting up early because I’d have to brush my hair long and hard before school each morning and that used to take ages (still does). I quickly woke my roommates up and went in to shower. It was Snowy’s turn to make breakfast and Fizz was making and packing sandwiches for lunch, just in case. As soon as I exited the shower, I smelled sausages and hungrily cleared my plate.
“What do you think the test will be about?” Snowy wondered.
“I don’t know anything about this test,” said Fizz, “except what it is about.” She pointed in the direction of the large stacks of notes we had been studying from yesterday. “I feel like there is no question about what is going to be tested here.”
Zacharias
I laughed. “OK, OK, no need to be sarcastic, Fizz. We’re all on edge here, that study night was tough on all of us.”
Fizz narrowed her eyes. “On edge? On edge? I am only edge, Sandy! I’m edgier than a chipmunk on a sugar rush! I’m edgier than thin crust pizza! I’m edgier than...” She trailed off, gesticulating wildly.
“I wonder how something can be all edge?” I mused. “Unless it’s a circle. One could argue that a circle is all edge. It stands to reason that -”
Fizz threw her fork at me.
“Moving on,” Snowy said pointedly, but before he could get any further, a bell rang loudly, filling the room.
Angelina
A voice was heard, Fa C’s no doubt, “Please exit your rooms immediately. The test begins now. There is a red button at the end of every corridor. If there is an emergency...well...you’ll have to figure it out and hope you don’t die, I guess. Good luck! And remember, the ones who finish first will get a prize!”
“OK, let’s do this then. Uh, and hope we don’t muck about, I guess,” said Snowy.
“Dude!” I shouted.
“What?” he asked.
“Dude! You’re gonna get the olympic medal for worst pep talk ever!”
Vincent
I rolled my eyes. “Let’s get going.”
I opened the door of the room.
“Wait! Wait!” called out ‘Punzel.
“What?” I asked, gritting my teeth. Any more interruptions and we wouldn’t even leave the room by the time everyone else was done, let alone finishing first. I turned irritably.
‘Punzel was pointing to the table. On it were four backpacks. Each had a name on the straps. I eagerly grabbed mine and looked inside. It had a Raspberry Pi 3, a mouse, and a pendrive, but my hand didn’t quite reach the bottom of that bag. Sandy’s had a small vial of nitric acid, rubber gloves, and tongs. Fizz’s had a long pole, a flashlight, and a mouthguard. ‘Punzel’s? Well, ‘Punzel’s was empty.
Cho
I was kind of surprised that my bag was empty. Everyone else’s had something inside it. But then again, I’m not really good at anything. I mean, I don’t have any real talent. I’m only good at E.R.101, and that’s purely logic. Anyone can do that by just applying their mind. There’s no real skill there. Anyway, as I dug deeper, hoping to find something, my fingers brushed against a piece of paper. I drew out the paper and it said:
“Find the BANK OF ASIA and remove the diamond necklace from the locker it was just deposited in.”
“That’s it?” Fizz said incredulously. “No rules? No hints?”
“I don’t know but if that’s for the best, Fizz,” murmured Sandy. “We’ve always been the ones for unorthodox ways of solving things.”
Zacharias
Snowy nodded brusquely to me. “Let’s get going then.” he said, and his shoulders added “finally”. We stepped out of the room, only to find that the by now familiar set of twisting hallway and closed rooms had been replaced by a busy street. All around children were emerging from doors of shops that were marked ‘CLOSED’. I looked behind us. We had just stepped out of a shop that said, “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Shop - crisp biscuits, delicious pastries, and a whole world of madness!”, right under which there was a sign saying “Closed for renovation”
Looking over her shoulder at the sign, Fizz gave an involuntary snort of laughter. ‘Punzel lookeed at it a little wistfully. “That looks like the sort of place I would have loved to go to.”
Angelina
Snowy started walking purposefully down the street. I followed close behind. ‘Punzel was marvelling at the surroundings. “It must have taken a serious amount of effort to do all this work in just one night!” she exclaimed.
“Yeah!” echoed Sandy.
I paid little heed to them. I was looking at the other groups of students, walking and talking in little huddles. It was easy to pick them out of the crowd. The were the only ones in the stark black and white clothing. They were all reading from little slips of paper and pointing in different directions.
“I get the feeling that every group was given a different objective,” I said. “Because, if you look closely, they are all heading in different directions, not one towards the Bank of Asia.”
Vincent
“That’s true,” I acknowledged. “And if that’s the case, then our task becomes significantly easier. We won’t have to battle with the other groups for the same objective.”
The looks on the others’ faces betrayed that though they had not thought of that as a possibility, they were relieved it was not going to be an issue. We continued on towards the Bank of Asia. It was not the main office, just a small branch, perhaps the main branch of this small village (I’m not sure what to call it really, it’s not a real town, so what rules does it follow?). It was a small white structure with a terrace on the top. We took the outer staircase to the terrace. There was an exhaust pipe there, which was big enough for a small person to crawl through. However, some extremely hot air was coming out of it and I didn’t fancy sending anybody through it.
Cho
The terrace was obviously not meant for visitors, because it was in disarray. There was hot smoke spewing out, trash everywhere and not a railing in sight. I noticed a ventilator grate near the spewer-out of hot air. (Pipe, yes pipe. I knew that).
Everyone was standing on the terrace in a semicircle and looking at me expectantly. “What?” I asked indignantly.
“So...what’s the plan ‘Punzel?” asked Snowy.
“What do you mean what’s the plan? We’ve only been here five minutes!”
“And?” Fizz smiled at me knowingly.
“OK, caught,” I said at last, “ I do have the beginnings of a plan. It starts like this...”
Zacharias
I have to say it. I just have to say it. ‘Punzel is a pure genius. How she came up with a full fledged plan in less than three minutes is beyond me. Her ‘beginnings of a plan’ was actually a long detailed summary of what we should do, keeping in mind the worst case scenario and taking into account the possible accidents. I half expected her to whip out blueprints of the building.
At the end of the plan, she said softly, “If anyone has a better idea, they can feel free to share it. I just had this thought, we don’t have to go through with this plan.” Noone said anything.
What ‘Punzel has is really special. The rest of us, we have talents that, hypothetically, anybody could cultivate with a little hard work. Her talent is a way of thinking. It’s not something you can develop, either you have it or you don’t. And she has it.
Angelina
The plan began with Sandy using his nitrogen acidy-thingy (OK fine, nitric acid, whatever, Sandy, chill) to melt the lock on the grate of the ventilator. Then I poked the pole through the opening, to gauge the vertical drop. It wasn’t much, so I went in. Inside, I attached the flashlight to the mouthguard and put it in between my teeth. I crawled in a little further. The boys soon jumped in. We crawled down the shaft that went steadily downwards, ignoring the openings till it opened at the top right corner of the bottom floor. That was where we encountered the first hiccup in our mission. The grate on the other side was also locked.
Sandy had used up all of his nitrogen acid-thingy (Fine! Nitric acid! Geez! Don’t pinch!) so the lock couldn’t be melted. Sandy suddenly had an idea. He whispered to his boomerang “keys” and then threw it between the bars of the grate. It went and retrieved a ring of keys.
Vincent
Fizz tried out every key on the ring until one fit. then she gently removed it. There was nobody in the room. She used her whirling nunchucks to fly down to the bottom of the room. The minute her feet touched the ground, she ran to the desk and picked up a walkie talkie. She spoke into it “We have a situation at the back door. All hands required.”
The watchmen standing at the front of the door hadn’t noticed Fizz yet. On hearing her message, they immediately left the vicinity, presumably for the back door. She then pulled a chair out underneath the ventilator and placed upon it another chair. We climbed down. It was then my turn. I walked over towards the computer in the front desk and furiously began to type.
Cho
In the meanwhile, I had climbed down from the terrace soon after the others had entered the ventilator shaft. I took out my knife and, putting it against a tile in front of the bank, pressed the button. The tile soon had a sizable chip.I then twisted my leg at an odd angle and sat on it. I started screaming. The two people inside rushed out to help me. Perfect.
“What happened, ma’am?” they asked frantically.
“I fell,” I wailed, “There’s a defect in the tile outside your bank, Mr. Teller.” II pointed to the break in the tile that I had just made.
“We need first aid,” said one, moving to get up
“No! Don’t leave me!” I screamed. “My ankle! It hurts!” There were real tears running down my face. I had perfected the art of fake crying long back.
“She probably broke it.” said one worriedly. They started calling the ambulance.
Zacharias
Snowy was going through the password protected list of valuable recent deposits. We supposed that if the necklace had been deposited recently, documentation would still be in the system, for it had not been long enough for it to be transferred to the main branch’s data reserve. I fervently hoped that this was indeed the case, for I hadn’t heard a single peep out of Snowy as of yet, just furious typing.
Outside, I saw an ambulance pull up and saw two people lifting a fair girl between them. Judging by their uniforms, the two people were Bank of Asia employees. The fair girl was definitely ‘Punzel. Wow, that’s quite potent ‘drawing out’. When we were first discussing the plan she had said, “I will draw out the employees inside, you just leave that to me.” Rather efficient, I must say.
Angelina
I stood, tense, next to Snowy while he was furiously typing. Finally, he called out, “Done! It’s in locker number 48. The pin is 475369. Don’t ask me how I did it!” We didn’t ask.
I rushed to the inside room. There were only a hundred or so lockers, so it didn’t take time to find it. Sandy wore his gloves and entered the pin. The locker door swung open. We grabbed the necklace inside and left hastily. Outside, Snowy was waiting. Just as we were wondering where to go, an ambulance pulled up and ‘Punzel stepped out of it, wearing a bandage on her ankle. The two bank employees also stepped out.
‘Punzel smiled sweetly, “Thanks for helping me in my time of need.”
“No problem,” one answered gruffly and they reentered the bank.
Vincent
“So,” she whispered, “Did you guys get it?”
In response Fizz opened her palm a little bit, within which was a small and delicate necklace.
“What do we do now?” I asked, “Check the note again ‘Punzel.
She took out the note. It now read:
“Take the necklace to house number 512. The number code to enter is 512.”
We went towards 5th Avenue. The twelfth house on that street had no number plate. Fizz tried the door. It opened. “What was the number code for then?” she began to wonder when pots and pans of various shapes and sizes began flying out of the house. I instinctively activated my shields, which I had been wearing since the beginning of the test.
Cho
I grabbed the door and pulled it shut. The house stopped ejecting kitchenware. I typed in the numbers ‘512’ into the keypad and opened the door again. This time there were no pots and pans. We walked through the doorway and closed the door. Just like that, we exited the town and returned to the school, for this was the familiar ER101 hall. Fa C was standing there in a crisp suit and a feline smile. “Good job to the team that came first.”