Superhero CITY - The Test

Chapter Twenty-One

Nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

That is what the clock said as I took the first step inside of the maze. I had wasted almost half a minute on coming up with my strategy, now I just had to pray - figuratively, because I was not religious - that it would pay off.

It only took six strides in, and a wall halted my movements. I could go right or I could go left, but a quick each direction shows the next corners appearing roughly the same distance away. Both options were relatively identical, and I could not do anything other than guess which way I might go in next, and the uncertainty of that was making me very an easy. I shifted my weight on my feet; Left, right, left. Then, because I was aware with every heating vibration ringing through the air of the passing seconds, chose my direction at random and spun on my heels at a full two hundred and seventy degrees with a single movement.

fifteen steps, then I had to turn right. twelve steps and I had to turn left, fourteen steps and I went right again, then after twenty-six steps I found my first three-way choice so I could go straight ahead or twist my way down one side or another.

I looked down at my forum at the markings I had pulled up from the lining of my glove. So far I was still hitting forwards in the right direction and I did not feel the need to change that so long as I could keep doing so. It was simply how I felt, and the clean cut logic was enough to make my decision.

I set my first foot in this new pathway, then followed it with my other as I began a confident, comfortable strides that could quickly eat up the distance between my position and my destination once more.

But after only the fifth quiet echo of my heel quietly impacting on the hardwood gymnasium floor, a nearly silent mechanical hiss whispered lowly in the air behind me. It was almost too quiet for my hearing to detect, and I and if not for the floods of adrenaline coursing through my veins, I don't think that my ears would have picked it up.

It was the type of sound that as a teenager who had grown up surrounded by as much technology at as wildlife, would be dismissed as typical without even a conscious thought. If not for the state of hyper awareness that I in, I would have never had looked behind me, never had realized why the simple means was actually a challenge, and actually a real test.

Extending from my feet, pointing the way that I wanted to go, my shadow flickered the most minuet degree before resetting. Then it happened again, only a second later – slow enough apart from the first time that I would not have notice it if I had not actually been searching my surroundings for whatever it was that has set me off in the first place.

The only time that a shadow is affected – other than by the superbeings who had that as their actual ability – was when something was happening to the surrounding light, and if the shadow was in front of me, then the light had to be coming from behind me.

Looking back had my heart pounding a mile a minute, and the racing tattoo against my ribs are only sped up impossibly faster when I registered what I was seeing only feet away from me.

A section of twelve-foot tall wall was sliding into place the barricade fit seamlessly with the other planks, it was even complete with the strip of LED lighting across its top.

"Crap!" Exploited out of my mouth, the beginning of a vulgar list of profanities as I realized how useless my tactic had become to me. You cannot make a map of a moving environment, and now I was even worse off than before, because at least at the start, I had known where I was.

I could feel my fists tightening as I desperately wanted to punch something. But I knew that it would do me no good.

Instead I spun back around fast enough to blur my vision, more determined than ever to make my way through this maze. The beating of the organ inside of my chest only begin to accelerate as I started to run down the narrow corridor.