Metastasis, Part 14: Puzzles
Part 1: Quarantine
Part 2: Odd Jobs
Part 3: Shuck
Part 4: The Old North
Part 5: Dirty Dave
Part 6: Multipliers
Part 7: Kilogold
Part 8: Analysis
Part 9: Reversal
Part 10: Miss Meta
Part 11: The Fourth Consortium
Part 12: Young Ghost
Part 13: Dungeon Diving
Synopsis(spoilers ahead if you want to read the story from the beginning)
Victor Meta is a time traveler who lived with his wife Janet and his young daughter Mira in a quaint timeline on the edge of obscurity. However, one day he was ambushed by soldiers of the Legion, and was forced to ally with a con artist named Shuck to save them from certain doom. By carefully manipulating time, he was barely successful, thanks to additional help surprisingly provided by his own daughter, now an adult time traveler.
But all of that pales in comparison to the revelation that Mira brings. They were not alone in being targeted. The time traveling family of Meta has been attacked throughout history. Ghost, another Gatekeeper who helped Dante Meta escape the coordinated assault, has joined the effort alongside that same Meta to find the masterminds behind the attack. And now, they all are working together to unravel the mystery of the Legion's ability to coordinate throughout time.
Their investigation begins at the mysterious Misty Cove, where they discovered and opened a massive vault.
The vault was surprisingly empty. A couple bags rested in the corner, presumably filled with gold or other valuables. In the center sate a glass case on a pedestal, while a metal cube with sides painted different colors sat inside. Shuck immediately took an interest. “Now, this is something I would not expect to see in a vault… it must be important.”
Victor quickly rummaged through the bags in the corner. “Well, there is no shortage of gold over here… seems like a lot of trouble to go through to secure it, though.”
Shuck shook his head, carefully inspecting the pedestal along all sides. “This room is likely not their main gold repository. I would expect something a bit more secure for their main stash.”
Victor scoffed. “A massive vault door isn’t secure enough?”
“It was behind a bookshelf, Vic. A real vault for storing real funds would be protected by armed guards, twenty four seven. The locks would be twice as complicated and use multiple factor authentication, such as requiring a passcode with a phonic receiver and visual verification with a face mapper. But still, a vault of this size must be protecting something, and getting through the lock that quickly must mean there are more surprises in here…”
Just as she was walking in while marveling at the size of the vault, Mira heard what Shuck said and froze. “What? You think there are MORE traps in here?”
Shuck frowned, taking an interest in a indentation within the pedestal. “Oh, almost certainly. But nothing lethal, as you don’t want an accident happening in a vault that may be used regularly. The traps are more likely of the lockdown type to prevent any sort of access. But…”
With a click, the glass case split into four symmetrical sections, opening outward like a blooming flower. Shuck delicately grabbed the cube from it’s stand, holding it with a look of self satisfaction. “…I’m nothing if not an expert at getting past such things.”
Victor took the cube, turning it over in his hands as he gave Shuck a disapproving glance. “So, you make a habit of breaking into secure vaults, do you?”
Shuck sighed. “There are legitimate reasons beyond criminality to do so, Vic. Like what we are doing. Right now. Just in case you haven’t noticed.”
Victor turned a side of the cube, finding it was some sort of puzzle. “Hmm… I suppose you may have a point. But what do you make of this, then? Got any inexplicable insight into this device?”
Shuck swiped the cube back. “No. None. It’s obviously some kind of artifact with significance, but I haven’t the slightest idea what it does or how it works.”
Mira tried to take the cube, but already growing frustrated with everyone messing with it, Shuck stepped back and held it out so Mira could see. She inspected the cube, commenting on the partially turned side. “It looks like a puzzle. All those little colored squares, it looks like there are one… two… six different colors! Do you think it’s possible to rotate it enough to get all colors on the same sides?”
Victor frowned, shaking his head. “That looks like it might be difficult… I’ve never seen a puzzle like this. What purpose would that serve, though? It looks like nothing more than a simple toy.”
Shuck got to work, solving one side almost immediately with a series of turns. “Oh, it definitely serves a purpose. One final puzzle within an already secured vault. Perhaps when it is solved, it opens up, and something important is inside. Or maybe the cube itself, once solved, is the key to something more significant? It’s hard to say, but I’m certain we have nothing to lose from sorting out this little cube…”
Mira watched with awe as Shuck’s hands moved with blinding speed. “Wow, Shuck… you sure are fast.”
Shuck slowed his movements briefly while he spoke. “It’s called overclocking. I want to solve this as fast as possible, so I use my electro casting to speed up my thought processes. Let’s me think and move faster. But it’s rather hard to do, so please don’t talk to me while I’m working…”
Mira kept quiet along with Victor as they watched the electro caster spin the cube at incredible speeds. Seconds later, Shuck held out the completed cube triumpantly. “Done. That was… rather anticlimactic though. I expected it to do… something.”
Victor took the cube from Shuck, turning it around before exclaiming. “Oh, there’s your problem, Shuck. You missed a side.”
Shuck angrily swiped the cube back. “What? No, that’s impossible I- oh, I see. Very well, I guess I just overlooked a side in my excitement. Just a moment…”
Several seconds of manic spins later, Shuck inspected a finished cube. “There we go, but still nothing… what’s going- wait, what? I missed a side again?”
Victor shifted on his feet, growing impatient. “Shuck, how about I give it a try? It’s fine if you don’t know how to solve it, maybe we can have Ghost-”
“NO! I know how to solve these things, as well as a variety of other brain teasers! It’s all part of… er, something I worked on in my past. But that’s not the point! Ghost will never let me live it down if he finds out I couldn’t solve such a straight forward puzzle. Just give me a minute…”
Shuck got to work, stopping every few minutes to inspect his work before starting again, anger increasing each time. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead as his movements visibly slowed down, though his motions were more aggressive. Shuck threw the cube against the opposite wall of the vault. “That thing is cursed! It makes no sense!”
Victor chuckled to himself, picking up the puzzle. “No need to be so frustrated. You gave it a good try, sitting there for almost an hour… but perhaps it would be prudent not to damage an artifact we still don’t understand.”
“Throwing it won’t break it, it’s not some fragile- wait, an hour? That long?”
Victor made a couple tentative turns of the cube. “Yes, Mira and I needed to speed time up a bit to not be bored to tears. How about you let me give this a try for a bit? If I can’t figure it out, we can just take it back with us to see if someone else can solve it.”
Shuck hated to admit defeat, but was still furious at the small metal cube. “Very well, but it’s not as simple as it looks! Getting one side is easy, and so is getting the next two rows. But the final side requires some very specific manuevuers to complete. I must be misremembering how to do them exactly, because I know for a fact there are full proof ways of solving the cube!”
Victor stopped turning. “Wait… I think I got it.”
Shuck was in disbelief. “No… you must be mistaken!”
“No, I think that’s all the sides… I did it by complete accident. I don’t know why you tried to make it sound so hard, it was as easy as-”
Victor vanished midsentence, puzzle clattering to the floor. Mira yelled in shock, running over to pick up the cube. “DAD! Are you in there?!? What happened???”
Shuck walked slowly over, inspecting the cube grimly. “Well, he did solve it… but it looks like it was a trap all along. The question is… did it kill him?”
Mira yelled in Shuck’s face, pinning him against the wall with a pulse of gravity. “You did this! You know what it is, and you didn’t solve it because you wanted Victor to take the fall! You MONSTER!”
Shuck kept a steady demeanor, looking Mira in the eye as he spoke. “There are several problems with that theory. Look at the cube; it didn’t open or otherwise change. For the moment at least, a solved cube does us no good. I also didn’t feign trying to solve it, given it’s rather humiliating that Victor solved it when I couldn’t. But most importantly of all… you should know if he’s dead or not, right? Is this how he dies?”
“Er… well, no. He died at age-”
“I prefer not to know the details, Mira. The point is he can’t be dead. Surely you know that?”
Mira stopped panicking for a moment to think, and released Shuck from her gravity based grip. “Of course… we don’t know what happened to him, but we know he’s still alive.”
Shuck picked up the cube. “Right… which makes this cube more mysterious, but less of a real threat. I can’t say for sure, but I doubt it’s a remote teleporter. Those are rare, expensive, and usually either travel with their target or disintegrate entirely upon use. So, any theories?”
Mira looked at the cube with confusion. “Why would you ask me? I have no idea! Maybe we should go talk with Ghost?”
“...I would rather not.”
“Why not?”
Shuck struggled to find an acceptable answer he could provide. “Well… it’s complicated. You had your reasons for not immediately revealing yourself to your father.”
“Right, because of the threat of a time toggle.”
“Well, let’s just say I have a similar issue with Ghost.”
Mira was dissatisfied with the answer. “I’m thinking maybe Ghost was right about you… you are hiding too many secrets.”
Shuck scowled. “So what if I am? We all have secrets! Can you please focus? Any ideas?”
Mira thought for a second. “What if… the cube hypnotized him?”
“What?”
Mira stood back from the cube, suddenly even more wary of the anomalous device. “Maybe he time jumped after the cube mind tricked him upon completion of the puzzle. Like a trap made for Metas specifically.”
Shuck considered the theory. “That… makes a lot of sense! Some short term mind bending is certainly possible, and the device clearly already has some mesmerizing capabilities that made it harder for me to solve. If it did make him time jump, and he hasn’t returned yet, then maybe he is stuck somewhere. A specific time meant as a trap. So the only way forward… is to follow him.”
Mira put her hands up, slightly frightened. “Whoa, after all of that, I’m not about to touch that thing. ”
“Of course not… then I would be stranded. I need to solve it, and hopefully it will give me a destination. Then, we can time jump to the same period after researching it to prepare.”
Mira nodded, though saw the obvious problem. “But you can’t solve it. You said it yourself.”
Shuck held the cube out in front of him. “Yes… but I’ve been thinking. What if this cube cheats?”
“What do you mean?”
“Victor solved it rather quickly… especially for someone not acquainted with these kinds of puzzles. Meanwhile, I’ve solved these before, and my efforts were thwarted. I think the colors are shifting on me. Keep an eye on the opposite sides out of my view while I try to solve it one more time… I won’t overclock so you can keep up. Let me know if the colors ever change.”
After mixing up the cube again, Shuck began turning, slowly and methodically this time. He kept his fingers on the edges so that he never colored any of the colored tiles. Luckily, his electro casting allowed him to magnetize the metal cube and keep hold of it while turning the sides. After several minutes, Mira cried out. “That’s it! You got it, all these sides are complete!”
Shuck frowned. “Yes, same with my sides… but still nothing. What the rift is this-”
The electro caster dropped the cube, holding his head in pain. Mira ran up to him, concerned. “Shuck! Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
Shakily, Shuck looked up at Mira. “I know where, or rather when, Victor is. For just one intense moment, it was the only thing occupying my mind. It obliterated everything… thoughts, memories, my sense of self… that was horrifying.”
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense! When are are going to? We need to make sure Vic is okay, and find out if he’s learned anything!”
“No… like I said, we can’t mess around with this. We need to go consult some history books. And despite my previous reservations, I think we would be foolish not to consult Ghost. I think this whole time, we may have been messing with a Vorpal Demiform.”
Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying the story, you might also enjoy some of my other published work on Amazon! It’s set in the same fictional universe, but follows different characters.
Gatekeepers, Book One: Unquestionable Truth
Gatekeepers, Book Two: Order of Gravitas
Same post on Minds