Zenith : In Character → Threads, Logs, Events

Who: Levi, Cecilia, Oliver, Ettie, and Justice
When: Morning
Where: Room #3

( What could possibly go wrong? )

Who: Abra, Kate, Kai, Ivy, and Dylan
When: Morning
Where: Room #4

( Wake up, bitches. )

Who: Group #2 (Audrey, Owen, Tobias, Scotty, and Marco)
When: Morning
Where: Room 2? Probably?

( Less trust falls, more never trusting anyone again. )

Who: Group #1 (Chase, Felix, Jesse, Lennon, and Edwin)
When: Wake-up time
Where: Room 1, presumably

( Go team Queer Boys! )

Day 13.

Weather: Temperatures remain low, road conditions clear.

Events: For the most part, we've seen twelve days of a kinder, gentler Mount Zenith. Arguably. And I think we all know it's time for that bullshit to end.

There are no changes in Pam and Kiley's situation. They have access to water now (yesterday evening a small stream revealed itself in the wall, though they are in no danger of flooding), but still no food. Arguably.

Everyone else's situations have changed rather swiftly. The remaining 20 subjects have been divided into four groups of five. Group #1 consists Chase, Felix, Jesse, Lennon, and Edwin. Group #2 consists of Audrey, Owen, Tobias, Scotty, and Marco. Group #3 consists of Levi, Cecilia, Oliver, Ettie, and Justice. Group #4 consists of Abra, Kate, Kai, Ivy, and Dylan.

Each group wakes up in an identical location. The rooms each group finds themselves in looks almost like the world's most nondescript conference room. The walls are a dark grey, the carpet is a similar grey, and there's a row of equally grey counters and cupboards against the western-most wall (not that any of them know which way west is). In the center of the room is a long table and chairs. There is a large set of double doors on the north wall, and a smaller door on the east wall. Everyone wakes up sitting on the floor propped up against the south wall.

There is a note on the table. It reads, "Prepare yourself. You are about to be tested. When you are ready, go through the double doors as a group. You will not be allowed to return to this room."

The eastern door is left ajar, and inside are some sinks and a couple of bathroom stalls.

On the counters on the west wall is an assortment of food and beverages. Muffins, pastries, granola, yogurt cups, juices, and bottles of water.

Each subject is either wearing whatever they were wearing when they went to bed, or, in the event that they were wearing nothing, a hospital gown. Any subject that is on morning medications will find them in a pouch safety-pinned to their clothing. Jesse has everything he would need to manage his diabetes, and Kate has her emergency inhaler.

The double doors have a small scanner built into the center. They will only open once each of the five subjects in the room scan their ID bracelet; when this is done, the doors will slide open. Once every subject has stepped through into the next room, the doors will slide shut. If anyone tries to linger or refuses to go through, they will receive a jolt in their implant until they go through and allow the doors to close. Subjects are allowed to bring items from the previous room with them, like food or drinks.

This new room is perfectly round, about ten feet across in any direction. There is a large metal door on the direct opposite wall, but it has no apparent means of opening it. In the center of the room is a large round table and five chairs arranged evenly around the table. The chairs look moderately comfortable, with padded seats and backrests, as well as arm rests. The center of the table raises in a roughly seven inch dome.

Also on the table, level with the left arm rest of each chair, is a small contraption built into the table. On the table surface itself is a small hand-shaped divot, with a small metal strip running over where the wrist would be if a person were to put their hand in the imprint. Next to it is a metal bar sticking out of the table, shaped rather like an upside-down L.

Once each of the five subjects walks into the room and the doors close behind them, a recording plays from a speaker in the ceiling. The voice is female, and obviously computer automated. It says,

"Each of you must take a seat and place your left hand in the mold. The bar will bind you to the table. Once each of you has been secured in place, a 90 second timer will begin.

Before the timer runs out, one of you must tell the others a secret. Doing this adds time. Each time the counter runs out of time, you will be punished.

You will be released in an hour. If you refuse to cooperate, everyone else in the room with you will be punished.

Start now."

At which point, the voice begins counting down from twenty. Let's say, as an example, everybody in Group #2 sits and places their hand in the print except for Audrey. When the voice reaches the count of one, everyone but Audrey will be zapped through their implant. This will start the spoken timer over again, and will continue until everyone is in place.

Once an individual sits and places their hand in the imprint, the bar raises slightly, rotates, and retreats back into the table, locking them firmly in place with their wrist against the metal strip on the table.

Once all five individuals are locked into the table, a digital timer appears in the dome on the center of the table, viewable to all five participants. It reads 00.00.90 and begins counting down immediately. Simultaneously, a timer appears on the metal door counting down from an hour.

If the table timer reaches 00.00.00, all five subjects are electrocuted through the metal strip on their wrist. It's not a high enough voltage to kill them or cause permanent injury, but it hurts. It is an agonizing blast, and it is possible an individual might bite their tongue and injure themselves. The shock leaves everyone slightly numb and incoherent, hands shaking, limbs tingling, and possibly experiencing vision, hearing, or speech issues. Their left wrists will burn slightly. After about a minute passes, the table timer resets to 30 seconds. Worse, the timer on the door restarts. If you're fifty-five minutes in and you let the table timer run out, guess what: you're still starting all over. A group could potentially be here all day. It only takes one asshole to ruin it for everybody, right?

The good news is that it's fairly easy to keep that timer running. Just keep spilling your secrets! That's all! Any cooperative groups will quickly realize that different sorts of secrets are worth different increments of time.

Here's how it works. Secrets are divided into three separate values.

A low-grade secret is a secret this individual has never told anyone in the room. It can be something involving another person in the house, as long as they haven't told anyone in that room. Example: Chase could tell his group about all the different places in Mount Zenith he and Kiley have slept together. Kiley knows, they share this secret, but it still counts. A low-grade secret is worth 60 seconds.

A mid-grade secret is a secret no one else in the house knows. Something they have never discussed with anyone in their time in Mount Zenith. A mid-grade secret is worth 1 minute, 30 seconds.

A high-grade secret is something that individual has never told anyone. A high-grade secret is worth 2 minutes.

Bonus points. Yup, that's a thing, too. Let's say Kai tells a secret. "This one time, at band camp... I did something with another girl that I regret." Ho-hum. Technically it works. It's a mid-grade secret, and it'll add 1:30 to the timer. But let's say Kai keeps talking. "No, I mean, really. This bitch kept making fun of my highlights so we took her drum and smashed it over her head while she was sleeping. She went home the next day crying. I still feel bad about it." This additional information enhances the story and adds a little insight into Kai, and adds an additional 30 seconds. Plus, the timer stops while she's telling the story, so it does help pad the time.

So, let's say Kai opens her mouth and begins to tell a secret. "This one time, at band camp..." When she begins speaking, the timer halts briefly. As she goes on with her story, the timer remains paused until she is finished speaking, and her 'score' is added to the clock. And yes, for the record, TPTB do seem to know exactly how to score things. What's more, if a person lies - makes up a false story just to buy time - they alone will be electrocuted, and the timer will keep running from where it left off.

Once the timer on the door finishes the hour, all five subjects are immediately released from the table, and they can leave the room. They'll then find themselves in a larger room with four other metal doors (they cannot be opened, and you cannot hear through them), as well as a somewhat rickety looking wooden staircase leading up to a trap-door in the ceiling. The trap-door opens up... behind the counter at Cassi's. Probably a good location, in case anyone has actually pissed themselves.

Other than the timers, there were no clocks in the previous room, so the subjects have no way of telling time. The earliest any group could get out - meaning, a group that lingers for no longer than a minute in the initial chamber, has no hesitation about strapping into the table, never has to restart the timer, and is never punished - would be at 10 AM. But let's be real, the odds of any one group being 100% well mannered and cooperative are fucking low, am I right?

Buuuut wait, there's more! Today, there are hints as to Pam and Kiley's presence in Mount Zenith. Or at least, someone's presence. These hints are... decidedly vague, but hey, at least they're something.

First, the Welcome to Mount Zenith sign has been repainted again, now reading with a population of 22. If anyone has been accurately keeping a daily headcount within the house, they'd know that's wrong - although it's entirely feasible to just assume the new additions were put into one of the groups. An individual would have be in the first group out of the Cassi's and wait behind to make sure everyone gets out okay to know the count is off.

Second, Chase is gonna find something waiting for him in his room if he ever gets back. When Chase returns to his room, he will find that music is playing very softly from his computer. No one else would hear it from outside the room, and even if the door was opened you might not hear it. It's so soft that it'd really take a couple minutes to realize it was there.

When he turns on his computer, he will see that a playlist of three songs is playing on repeat, and apparently has been for hours. The songs playing are:

I Think We're Alone Now - Tiffany
Down in a Hole - Alice in Chains
Somewhere Only We Know - Keane

How arguably supremely helpful! Wow!

Tags: #day 013, #time update