Nina looks down at her square, her mind rapidly scrolling through every possible meaning of that sentence. Is it a clue, a riddle, an anagram? She rearranges the words in her head quickly, watching as the wall approaches her, five squares away now and getting closer.
But nothing makes sense. The letters do not rearrange in any reasonable order. Stay on a3:
Y Sonata 3
3 Astony
Nasty an 3
It’s not an anagram; it’s simply an instruction.
But should she follow it or not, can she trust it or not?
At that moment another door opens opposite her at the other end of the board.
Again, Bathsheba reminds her, “Stay on a3.”
But the wall is closing in. It’s three squares away now and Nina has absolutely no idea what the trick of this room is yet—and time is very clearly running out.
She looks down at her lit square and the five squares surrounding it. She looks up at the open door and cautiously extends a foot forward toward the square in front of her.
“Do not advance. Stay on a3.” Bathsheba’s voice kicks in, causing her to jump.
Nina considers not moving but the wall is getting closer every second and if she doesn’t move soon, she might not make it across the space in time to get to the door at all.
Slowly she lowers her foot onto the square in front of hers. And nothing happens. The square lights up and she gingerly shifts her weight onto it. Then she tries the next and the next and the next, growing in confidence with every jump, until the wall brushes her elbows as she leaps from the room and reaches the relative safety of the vestibule beyond.
Nina turns to look back into the room as her a3 square disappears and the moving wall meets the stationary one. If she had stayed, she would be dead now, dead or severely injured. She needs to remember that sometimes things really aren’t that complex.
She watches and after a few seconds the wall begins to reset to its original position before the door closes behind her.
Chess is a game of strategy, but sometimes the best strategy is just to run.
CHAPTER 40
NINA
N ina hears the sound of orchestral music up ahead and follows it toward the next room. Inside the white room stand three large tables, each with a small box placed on top of it. Nina walks toward them; the room seals behind her as she reaches the first of them.
“Welcome, Nina, to The Fire Sermon. The game will now commence.”
A low hiss fills the room under the melody of the light classical music.
Gas; gas is being pumped in. Nina instinctually covers her nose and mouth but the sour, penetrating odor cuts through her clenched palm.
Nina spots the screen across the room and runs to it as words appear.
The gas you are now breathing is a nerve agent.
You have between 5 and 20 minutes before this fully
takes effect.
On the tables in this room there are three boxes,
each containing an injection: a potential antidote.
But only one of the syringes is live. The others are
