An invitation for a party put on by the Kappa Alpha frat house appears on various university bulletin boards. It's slated to start at 6pm on Saturday with a different address in each city. Each leading to a recently or not-officially opened building.
Riley shows her the screen, it lists the positions of Security Officer, Gardener, and Janitor. A listing for a second med-tech is absent. "Hm, I guess it's only one person per job. That seems a little weird."
"Sure, onward to explore the great outdoors." The exit leads out into the vicinity of of a well-manicured garden. There are pebbled paths leading off in a couple directions. Almost out of sight down one path is what looks like a pool. Another path leads towards a clearly visible beach volleyball court.
"Yeah, I feel like a Janitor might be able to get through locked doors, not sure what else it'll let you do. Security officer likely lets you do the same."
The Janitor position lists the responsibilities as 'ensure that the facility remains clean and ensure that routes around the complex are not blocked'
The Gardener position lists 'monitor the growth of crops and ensure that they meet the needs of the residents and attempt to make the gardens are aesthetically pleasing to the residents.'
The Security position lists 'ensure that threats to the facility and its residents are contained.'
"Yeah no, pool or volleyball court, or do you mean even less playing along and just forge through the garden hedge?"
"I don't have a strong preference, if we had more people I'd try to fill all the jobs, as is I think Janitor might be better, they tend to have keys and I wouldn't want to get trapped anywhere if we go exploring."
"I'm not sure this is a good idea but ok," He walks forwards into the garden patch and then into the gap between two bushes. There's a small thicket of trees that is navigable but a bit uncomfortable before they find themselves exiting onto another path. In one direction you can see a tennis court, in the other a decent sized greenhouse, about the size of the room they were in earlier. "Through the next grove?"
There's a pretty comprehensive section in the encyclopedia on stain removal, there's also a facilities section with some interesting information, including a description of types of teleporters and how to recognize them. Ones like the 'elevator' that they went through are listed as standard but there are also airlocks, trapdoors, and code-ring teleporters.
Riley goes back to reading about medical procedures. Whenever Maddie feels ready or is just bored there's a test she can take to see if she qualifies.
The next thicket of bushes and trees gives way to a clearing surrounded on all sides. In the middle is a hexagonal obelisk. On each side of the obelisk is a picture of a weird oblong pentagon with the same point marked near one corner. From there there is a meandering line leading to some other point within the pentagon, with various little short offshoots which seem to indicate turns you're not supposed to take. Below each diagram is a short line and then a shelf. From the side the came in on clockwise they read Stored power for travelling afield, an eye of glass and metal, a child's toy bouncing high, a weapon thin but strong, a wheel that turns and finally, a box for thoughts.
"Well, that's a scavenger hunt if I ever saw one."
"This is the kind of thing we probably shouldn't be playing along with, but I'd hate to become predictable. Let's go."
The test takes about twenty minutes and seems to delight in asking about silly minutia, with her cursory read she'll be able to answer about a third of the questions correctly, and at the end she's rated as Moderately Competent and that she's employed as a Janitor (Provisional). Her list of rights and privileges includes the ability to unlock doors in the black area. It notes that upon being judged competent she will be able to switch some areas to be cleaned exclusively by residents, change preferences on whether beds should be made by the cleaning robots, reactivate teleporters in her area, assign new access codes to teleporters, and conduct debugging tests on the various locking mechanisms in his area, and manage swimming pools and other similar facilities.
"The teleporters and the doors sound really useful, swimming might be nice too."
"I think I like it makes sense to follow one of these routes, but I don't want to leave Alice alone for too long." There's a thin garden path that matches the maps leading out of the clearing.
"I think so, there are a lot black accents around here, and I haven't seen accents in the other five colors."
"Alice will stick to the plan unless we're gone for like an hour or two, but she'll worry before then."
"We'll go back, tell her what we found so far, and take a break. Then we can come back here, and keep pushing until we find an edge."
"Well, there's a directory for a mall which I think is supposed to be below us. It's kinda insane though. The mall has 450 km of linear storefront. Even the closest other home complex is about 75 km from us if I've read it correctly. There are bike stores though."