She can’t smell any of them, but then would she bet her life on it?
And then of course there is the possibility of thallium or arsenic—both scentless.
Fear erupts inside her, the absolute certainty that she has ingested one of them solidifying in her mind.
Nina looks urgently back to the screen, desperate for an answer or, at the very least, more questions. She tries to recall if either poison has an antidote.
The screen now reads simply:
Death by water is: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
It requires an answer. An answer might supply her with a cure.
The answer is eight letters long. Her death by water is: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.
Thallium fits. And hydrogen, but not hydrogen sulfide. Would hydrogen still count?
Shit. Nina blows out a hard breath, her hands shaking with the tension. Then a thought occurs.
“Bathsheba, how many guesses do I get?” she asks, her voice assertive with an underlying quiver.
“Checking system,” Bathsheba answers efficiently. “Question one will allow for two incorrect answers. Your third answer will be final.”
Three guesses. Nina quickly types in thallium—because if it is thallium, she only has a short amount of time left, and if it isn’t then she has two more chances.
The room emits a bass-y failure tone, the lights lower in hue.
“Oh fuck. Fucking fuck,” Nina erupts, turning to the console again. “Think, think,” she orders herself. She cricks her neck and shakes out her hands with a light bounce on her feet.
There is a splash, splash noise from the floor as she moves. She looks down. The small room is filling with water. She steps back from the console, her eyes roving the room for an explanation—which she finds beneath the stop/start tap. The grate that was previously draining away the flowing water is now pumping water back into the room at a frankly alarming rate.
The room is designed to fill with water: death by water.
That is it, not poison. She hasn’t been poisoned; the water is going to kill her in a very different way.
Instead of fear, joy bursts through Nina as she rapidly counts out the letters on her trembling fingers. Yes, that’s it. That’s the answer.
She wades back to the screen, water now at knee height and rising. She taps out her answer, her finger hovering momentarily over the SUBMIT button, before squeezing her eyes shut and tapping. On the screen her answer pulses.
Death by water is:
D
R
O
W
N
I
N
G
Correct!
