Chapter 39 Ants from Up Here
Ants from Up Here
The inside of the Torre del Mangia is stickier than expected.
I thought the ancient stone would be cool to the touch and give me the same kind of otherworldly chill that I’d felt in the Initiation Well.
Instead, the short, narrow climb up to the ticket office, a round room just above the base of the tower, is warm and clammy.
The production assistant pauses, turning to stop us on the landing.
“You’ll go up to the top one at a time. The other person will wait here for their turn.
” She points to the queue area, empty save for an extra camera crew set up in front of a long stone bench.
“It doesn’t matter which order you go in. Who wants to do what?”
Yumi eyes her suspiciously. “It really doesn’t matter?”
“It really doesn’t.” Her weariness indicates that we aren’t the first team to interrogate her on this. “It’s the exact same task, you just have to go one at a time.”
“Okay, give us a sec.” Yumi tilts her head further into the ticket room, like a few steps will give us any degree of privacy from the cameras and microphones. She takes my hands, pulling me into a huddle.
I whisper, “Do we think the order really doesn’t matter?”
“They said it doesn’t. They can’t lie to us, right? Like cops?”
I furrow my brow. “Cops can lie. They lie all the time. That’s not important,” I say waving a hand. “Would you be better off going first or second?”
Yumi bites her bottom lip, her hands tightening and loosening the straps of her backpack repeatedly. “You go first.”
Holding her gaze, I ask, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I want to make sure you come back alive. Then I’ll feel better about going.” She hesitates before giving in to sincerity and saying, “Take it slow if it gets scary up there, you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I say flippantly, trying to put her at ease. She can’t get tilted. I need her relaxed, to keep us in the game if I fuck up. I pout my lips and tap my cheek with my forefinger. “Kiss for luck?”
She squints at me, but then her lips land on my skin. They’re soft, despite the faux irritation that has her overaggressively ricocheting off my cheek with a loud pop. “Good luck, babe.”
“I don’t need it,” I say, smirking. “I just wanted the kiss.”
Yumi rolls her eyes, but at least she’s untilted for now. I turn back to the production assistant. “I’ll go first.”
She nods, stepping aside and flourishing a hand for me to begin my climb. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“Noelle,” Yumi calls, her voice smaller than usual. “Be careful.”
“I’m not going to war,” I say, lifting my right foot onto the first step. It’s not my climb that makes me nervous—it’s hers. I have to be calm. I have to radiate calm, so that Yumi goes into this with as much confidence as possible.
“Well, be careful anyway. Babe.”
I wink at her. “Thanks, babe.”
The air is stale and musty, leaving a faint metallic taste in my mouth as I make my way up the stairwell.
This section is slightly wider than its counterpart below the ticket office, but not by much—anything more than a single-file line wouldn’t fit.
The square spiral winds tightly in on itself, low ceilings and steep, slippery steps that have been worn down by centuries of foot traffic.
I can only imagine how claustrophobic it is when tourists ascend and descend simultaneously.
The only source of light is the sun filtering in through thin ventilation slits set at irregular intervals.
Once again, I find myself wondering if a set of evil geniuses went through contestant applications, wrote down our biggest fears, and planned the challenges around that.
I think about Logan and his freakout underground in Portugal—whether it was the dark or the closed space, it’ll probably be triggered here.
And Matt, who shares Yumi’s fear of heights, will…
The pit of my stomach drops. I guess that doesn’t matter anymore.
KC and Gabriel probably had to fold themselves in half to avoid concussion.
The stairs wind up and up, long enough that by the time I reach the top, the idea of their history has ceased to be interesting. The monotony even provides a break from my worries about Yumi. I don’t want anything, except to be done climbing the stairs.
Finally, I reach a heavy wooden door at the top of the rise.
Pushing it open, I step onto the tower’s platform.
The orange-tiled roofs bask in the sunlight, and another tower—this one with black-and-white-striped layers—stands at eye level with the Torre del Mangia.
Beside it, a shorter dome huddles in its shadow.
I step forward, leaning over a dip in the crenellation to observe the open square below, where we raced KC and Gabriel.
Usually, when The Adventureverse does challenges like this, there’s some sort of large painted code for the teams to find.
Not seeing anything, I circle all the way around the central pillar of the tower until I find the clue box.
There are four envelopes inside, and they all look exactly the same.
I step forward, picking one at random and tearing it open.
ANTS FROM UP HERE: Congratulations, Adventurers.
You have made it to family visits. Each Adventurer’s visiting family member is somewhere in the Piazza Del Campo.
Team members get one guess to identify their PARTNER’S loved one in the crowd 300 feet below.
Only correctly identified loved ones will attend dinner with the Adventurers.
A contestant whose loved one was incorrectly identified must return to the hotel for the evening and will not attend dinner.
Once you have made your selection clear to the present crew members, return to the ticket office and await further instructions.
The crowd is a blur of movement, people walking, chatting, laughing.
It’s impossible to make out any of their features from this height, but I don’t need to.
I can tell Yumi’s lola from her walk, a slow sort of shuffle of her tiny body.
And it doesn’t hurt that most of the other people in the Piazza are white and young.
Relieved in how confident I am with my choice, I point my selection out to Petter, making sure he sees exactly who I’ve selected before I start back down the tower.
A warm rush of tingling anticipation rises in my body like bubbles in seltzer water.
Yumi’s going to get to see her lola, and I’m going to get to see my dad. On The Adventureverse.
Alone in the tower staircase, I stop at one of the slotted windows and lift the globe of my necklace to my lips. Look, Mom. Can you believe it?