Chapter 6 Beck
Beck
Beck looked down at the ocean-blue lab coat, then up at the mirror. He liked the effect. The color matched his eyes. The stylists hadn’t done much—a bit of powder, a pencil to his eyebrows, a slick of mousse. He still looked like himself, just turned up a notch.
Plus, the lab coat. Beck liked the lab coat.
He mimed fidgeting with invisible glasses.
“The specimen has taken on properties that we could not have accounted for,” he said in his best serious-scientist voice.
“It will soon infect us with a flesh-eating virus that will spread across the planet, devouring everything it comes into contact with . . . and there is simply nothing we can do.” He clicked his tongue.
“Terrible shame.” The TV on the wall flickered in the reflection.
Beck spun around as the blue screen switched to an internal channel to reveal Fitzy, the show’s host, in a linen shirt and faded jeans, beaming at the camera.
He might not have been the brains of the show, but his offbeat charm and utter lack of pretension were part of what made it work.
“Welcome to season five of The Escape Game!” he said, his Australian accent tasting like salty oysters.
“The show where we lock teenagers in rooms full of puzzles, clues, and codes to see who can escape the fastest. I’m your host, Fitzy, and this season, our teams will be competing for the biggest cash prize ever offered on The Escape Game.
The winning team will be awarded . . . wait for it . . . one million dollars!”
The screen changed to B-roll footage of hundred-dollar bills dropping from the sky onto an enormous pile of cash.
A gaudy reminder. If Beck’s team won, he’d have a whopping two hundred and fifty grand to call his own .
. . for at least five minutes, before he paid off his parents’ bills and told the debt collectors to suck it.
“But that’s not all,” Fitzy continued, and Beck took an eager step closer to the screen.
“Because this season, we’re offering an exclusive early-access invitation to Sweetbrier Resort!
” Drone footage played across the screen: a glamorous hotel, a lake with an anchored pirate ship at its center, a flag with the logo for Victory Escapades, Inc.tm fluttering over a castle drawbridge.
“The team who comes out on top this season will be the first members of the public to explore Victor Cunningham’s highly anticipated playground for puzzle lovers.
But we’ve got a lot of escape room shenanigans coming up before we declare our winners, so let’s go over the rules. ”
The screen switched to fancy graphics of clocks and flashlights.
“Today’s room is what we call our snag round.
It’s a chance to see what these teams can do, and it’s the only round during this competition in which no team will be eliminated.
However, there’s plenty of incentive for them to do well, as the fastest team to solve each puzzle will earn the Game Master’s highly coveted ‘snags,’ which is our clever word for”—he lowered his voice to a sinister stage whisper—“‘sabotage.’ Unlock a bonus today, and our teams will be able to royally screw over their competitors in future rounds. And you know they’re gonna want those snags, because after today, the team that takes the longest to escape each room will be going home.
Now, let’s give it up for the man who’s been working hard to bring you the most brain-twisting escape rooms around .
. . the Game Master himself, Louis Augustus Russell! ”
The Game Master strode onto the set, thumbs hooked behind his suspenders. “Thanks, Fitzy. It’s great to be back.”
While Beck’s synesthesia made Fitzy’s voice taste like shellfish, the Game Master’s deep baritone was like the first glass of eggnog on Christmas Eve—smooth and rich and overly decadent.
Fitzy draped an elbow over Louis’s shoulder. “Word is, you’ve mixed things up this season . . .”
“Beck Matheson?”
Beck spun to see a man from the set crew holding a headset.
“Time to get mic’d up.”
Beck’s heart galloped. “Cool,” he said breathlessly. “Uh . . . where’s my team?”
“Put this in your right ear,” the man said, attaching a tiny microphone to the lab coat’s lapel.
“This way,” said yet another crew member, a woman with a clipboard and walkie-talkie. Beck followed her out through a dingy mustard-yellow hallway.
“Say cheese,” barked a voice. Beck turned to see a girl with blond pigtails and a lot of makeup. Her iPad camera flashed in his face. Beck jolted back, but the girl was already walking past him.
He shook his head, trying to clear the sparkles in his eyes, then a door was opening and there it was—the main soundstage, where Fitzy greeted contestants.
W here he and Louis joked about what devious puzzles the Game Master had planned.
W here, once a week, a team would have their hopes crushed as they were eliminated from the competition.
Not Beck’s team, though. He was here for the long haul.
Come hell or high water. Even in his head, his grandfather’s raspy drawl tasted like pipe smoke and cedar trees.
The set looked smaller in real life. Where the cameras cut off the edges of the backgrounds, Beck could see the scaffolding made of two-by-fours and plywood, the leftover paint splatter on the floor.
As someone who prided himself on his attention to detail, especially when he was constructing one of his own escape rooms, he found messy craftsmanship disappointing.
But he didn’t let himself dwell on it. This was reality, this was Hollywood, and that was—
Louis Augustus Russell.
“Holy crap,” Beck said.
Fitzy and Louis stood in the middle of the set, but rather than chatting like they’d been on the television screen, Fitzy was looking at his phone while Louis had powder dabbed onto his chin by someone from makeup. Maybe the footage they’d been showing backstage had been recorded in advance.
Beck’s earpiece crackled. “Next contestant, Beck Matheson, in place.”
The makeup person disappeared. The lights brightened. Fitzy’s phone vanished into a pocket and his smile returned full-wattage. Louis folded his arms stoically over his barrel chest.
“Action!”
A script scrolled across a blue screen beside the cameras.
“Let’s welcome another contestant,” read Fitzy.
“Don’t be fooled by his sunny disposition and those baby-blue eyes.
This one makes his own escape rooms in his spare time and has a particular taste for Wild West saloons and medieval torture chambers.
” Fitzy raised an eyebrow at Louis. “Fancy he might be gunning for your job, Game Master?”
“I don’t mind some healthy competition.”
“You heard it here, folks. Let’s welcome: Beck Matheson!”
Beck was shoved between the shoulder blades. He stumbled forward. Glaring lights surrounded him. The temperature seemed to spike ten degrees.
That same voice rasped in his ear, with the texture and taste of gravel. “Smile, kid. You look like a deer staring down a hunter’s rifle.”
That was about how he felt. But he plastered on a smile, and as he crossed the set, his fear began to fade, replaced with a sense of euphoria. Hell’s kittens, he was on The Escape Game!
He danced the rest of the way across the stage to the music thrumming through overhead speakers.
“Yeah!” said Fitzy, breaking into some sort of hip-hop move himself. “He’s got style!”
Beck grooved to a stop and couldn’t help laughing, more exhilarated than embarrassed. “Fitzy! Game Master! Hi!”
Louis gave a stoic nod while Fitzy wrapped an arm around Beck’s shoulders. “Beck! Are you excited? Are you ready?”
“Yes! I can’t wait to get started!”
Fitzy turned to the Game Master. “So, Louis, what can you tell Beck about this first room?”
“Wait,” said Beck, and made a show of looking around. “Where’s the rest of my team?”
Louis’s lips curled into a secretive smile.
“Don’t worry about them. Now, listen closely.
You and your teammates are laboratory assistants working for the genius chemist Dr. Adam Theery.
You have been tasked with creating a serum that will enhance the power of the human brain to astronomical levels, unleashing our true potential for ultimate intelligence.
However, a spy has sneaked into your laboratory, locked you and your team in the supply closets, and kidnapped your boss.
You must follow the clues left by Dr. Theery in order to finish the final serum .
. . before your opponents can obtain all the doctor’s secrets. ”
Beck whispered, “Cool.”
Fitzy chuckled. “I wonder if our Game Master might have a hint to help you complete this task?”
Beck stood straighter. The Game Master’s clue had been known to make or break a round.
“As you know,” said Louis, “winning teams aren’t always those with the smartest players or the most experience. Sometimes the winning team is the one that has the best . . . chemistry.”
Chemistry. Laboratory. Got it.
Except that didn’t seem like much of a clue.
Beck had no time to ponder it because Fitzy was handing him a blindfold. “Ready?”
“Heck yeah.” Beck slid the mask over his eyes, blacking out the world. Everything but the sounds and the tastes. “Wherever you are, Dr. Theery, I won’t let you down.”
“Nice one,” mumbled the director’s voice in his earpiece.
Beck preened.
He was led off the stage. They didn’t walk far.
“Through here,” said his guide. “One more step. And . . . stop.”
Beck listened to his own breath and refrained from rubbing his sweating palms on his lab coat. “But my team—?”
“I’m going to activate the door,” the guide said. “It’s self-locking, but we’ll be on the other side if there’s trouble.”
Something rumbled. The doors, closing Beck in.
Fitzy’s voice came through his earpiece. “When I say the magic word, you may remove your blindfolds and begin. Three . . . two . . . one . . . Escape!”
Beck yanked off the blindfold.
He was alone in a room not much bigger than a storage closet, the walls painted slate gray and the floor speckled linoleum.
Everything had a pink glow about it. No indication of his entry point—it had merged seamlessly into the wall.
A light bulb hung overhead. Before him was a metal door with a three-digit padlock on the handle.
A piece of torn paper was tacked to the center of the door. The scrawled message read no one nor.
He turned around. A shelf at eye level held a collection of glass jars with a strange assortment of items in them. The pink glow, he saw now, was coming from a neon sign that said, simply, escape.
In case he forgot what he was here for.
Already, his nerves were dissipating. Codes.
Logic. Patterns. This was his happy place.
No matter his reasons for being here—the tarnish of resentment that had plagued his relatives for the last decade, his plans to finally set things right—here, he was in control.
Beck versus the puzzle room. Beck versus the Game Master.
He was reaching for the first jar when a new voice crackled in his ear.
“Roll call. Who’s here with me?”
Beck froze. The voice was familiar. The texture. The taste. It was so unexpected and so . . . impossible that Beck swiveled around in a full circle, sure this was a practical joke.
“Hello?” said another feminine voice, warm and comforting, like chamomile tea. “I’m Carter. Where are you?”
“A very, very small room,” said the final team member, a guy, this one with a husky drawl like aged leather and currants.
“Name?” came the first voice again. Beck shut his eyes. He had to be wrong.
“Adi,” the boy grunted.
“That it? Should be four of us. Come on, clock’s ticking.”
Every word made Beck’s mouth water with the distinctive mixture of blue Kool-Aid and sherbet fizzing along his tongue.
If he wasn’t mistaken, he was locked in an escape room with Sierra freaking Angelos.