Lysander loves theme parties. He spends a few days looking for the right ensemble, but it's worth it. Any guy who isn't impressed by the work he put in isn't his type. 

He arrives fashionably late.

Stiles and Greg are on time, just barely. He ended up convincing her it was a bad idea to break into the Kappa Alpha house while everyone was out, and now she's stuck going to this stupid party.

They arrive at the building, there's still construction framework around some of the upper floors but the revolving door is unlocked and the lobby looks welcoming, there's a table to the side of an elevator with drink bowls and cups set out. Beside the table is a sign that in big friendly letter says "Have a drink, choose an access code and enter a party." A table on the other side of the elevator has little pieces of paper with colored text that has song names and alpha-numeric codes written underneath them.

The six songs are

Red) It's My Party

White) Great Balls of Fire, 

Blue) House of the Rising Sun 

Green) I Can See Clearly Now, 

Black) In the Year 2525, and 

Yellow) Stairway to Heaven

...so he probably misunderstood the theme, but that's fine. He pours himself a cup and reads the red-colored slip. 

"C'mon Stiles, it'll be fun. Look, it's some kind of puzzle, you love puzzles."

Greg looks around the empty lobby, mildly surprised that everyone is already inside. They weren't that late. 

"I love puzzles."

"You're the puzzle master, all hail your puzzle-solving prowess."

She examines the slips.

"White for you, blue for me."

They walk to the elevator.

The door opens when they press the call button revealing a very modern looking elevator with a keyboard mounted into the back wall with a display above it and no other buttons.

He checks his slip for the code and types it in as they go inside.

He drinks. He pours himself another. 

He heads to the elevator and enters his code. 

The elevator doors close behind Lysander and he feels a slight turning sensation for the boring minute long elevator ride before the elevator opens onto a lounge with red trim and plush leather couches. Off to the side is a buffet table with standard buffets set up. One of the buffets stands is open revealing a salad. At the back of the room there is a counter and a doorway to a kitchen area.

And behind the counter are a man and a woman of about college age arguing. "This doesn't look anything like the city Alice, we aren't going to get home safely by rushing off in the first direction to come to mind."

"I realize that Zahn but that doesn't mean we should sit here and relax, we have no guarantee that this place is safe."

Meanwhile, the elevator doors close behind Stiles and Greg. Stiles is immediately afflicted with a sense of vertigo and a splitting headache while Greg simply feels a strange turning sensation, weirdly the remaining drink in his cup isn't so much as quivering.

They're not even slightly dressed up. What a waste of a good outfit. 

"Did everyone else read a different flier? I think you're both underdressed." 

This is pretty cool.

"This is pretty cool!"

"Bad boy, worst friend." 

She leans against the wall.

They both look up abruptly. "You're asking about dresscode? Haven't you... oh, you just got out of the elevator. You don't know yet." She turns back to her companion. "Zahn you explain, you're better at that."

Her companion shoots her a betrayed look and then pauses a moment to collect himself. "To begin with, as she just said I'm Zahn and she is Alice. We've been here for a while and the view out that window there," he points with one hand towards a large window in the kitchen behind him. "Does not remotely correspond with the surroundings on the other side of the elevator. The same elevator with no button for a return trip."

After about a minute, Stiles's headache and vertigo recede and the elevator doors open. Beyond is a lushly appointed lounge with blue trim. There are comfy chairs, tasteful lamps and a buffet table set out to the side with enough containers for several entrees.

So. Cool.

They dig in.

"Right. Can I talk to the host? This isn't exactly what I was expecting, I'm not into the whole LARP thing."

"You can look out the window yourself. If you don't believe us. As for the host, neither of us have seen anyone else."

"I wish this was a joke." Alice says then sighs.

"The window is impressive," he admits after a moment of inspection.

He tries the elevator again. 

The door opens but the screen above the elevator is inactive and nothing happens if he presses keys on the keyboard.

"Yeah... I tried that too. It looks like the elevator was a one-way trip," he sighs. "We've there's a door at the back of the kitchen and a hallway there. There's some bedrooms and closets and a bathroom. Then the hallway dead ends into a curved balcony, ramp thing that goes down like 5 floors. We haven't explored the lower floors yet."

"This is a terrible party! It's also a terrible abduction, don't abductors usually abduct people for a reason besides surrealism?"

"I'd assume there is another reason. I'd say it's like a horror movie, but they don't tend to be as bright and cheery."

"Well... they often start out bright and cheery." Alice scowls at him. "Sorry, but this is kinda exciting in a way. Either we were teleported or that window is some sort of ridiculously advanced 3D display. Regardless, someone has gone to a lot more trouble than I'd expect if the only goal were to mess with us, or kill us for that matter."

"Do the other rooms look normal? Do we have running water?" 

"Well the bedrooms are a fair shade nicer than the dorms at UCLA but otherwise they're pretty normal. Beds, desks, chairs, other bedroom furniture. The bathroom is set up a bit like a lockerroom, it has stalls but the showers don't have any dividers so that might get a bit odd with a mixed gender group. The closets have linens and cleaning supplies. The kitchen is pretty well stocked, and yeah there's running water. The only weird thing is that the freezer and the fridge look like perfectly normal cabinets."

"Well, there's no use freaking out about it. Did you two already claim rooms?"

"No, that was more or less what we were arguing about when you showed up. Zahn is of the opinion that we should settle in here and only explore in ways we're pretty sure will allow us to get back. I'm more willing to risk abandoning this place for a chance at getting home."

"If we're claiming rooms I'm taking the one on the left just before the ramp. That said, I'll reiterate the argument I made to Alice. We have no idea where we are or how easy or hard it would be to get home. If we stay here we have plenty of food, a place to sleep and as you asked about running water. Until we know more about this place I don't think we should abandon it."

"I think we need to get out of here because we have no idea who set up the elevator or why and I'm not keen on sitting around and waiting for them to come explain!"

He looks at her sharply, "That isn't what I'm proposing and you know it. I think we ought to explore, I just think we need to be careful about doing so, and make sure that we don't lock ourselves out of what might well be the only area of safety wherever we are now." 

"We could split up. Two of us go ahead, one stays back here. I can go with Alice, since she's so eager." 

"The thing is that we have no cell-service here. So there isn't really an advantage to splitting up in terms of being able to get back. I'm all for exploring though, I just think we need to be careful about how we go about doing it."

"Agreed, whatever is happening splitting up is a bad idea until we have a better understanding of this place."

"We can't learn anything new by sitting around. Is there a ventilation system? If we're in some kind of building there should be a ventilation system." 

He looks around the room.

There are hatches about the size of dog doors in both the lounge and the kitchen but there's no clear method for opening them. There are also long thin vents along the edges of the ceiling. No other ventilation systems are in evidence.

Zahn follows his gaze, "Yeah there's definitely a ventilation system but good luck getting inside it. I'm not sure what those hatches are for."

"I don't think we should abandon this place. If we're not splitting up, I vote we stay."

Alice gives a deep sigh. "Yeah, that was likely the way the argument would have ended up even if you hadn't shown up."

"Alright with that decided, we should probably get something to eat and maybe pick rooms like you suggested before we get going." Putting words to actions he goes to serve himself.

Alice follows with only a hint of reluctance.

Well, it's almost like a party.

"The food probably isn't poisoned, right?" 

"If this food is poisoned there's no reason not to expect the rest of the food to be poisoned too. I guess we could just not eat but then we'd starve. I think it makes sense to risk it."

Uh huh.

He'll wait for Zahn to try it.

Zahn does indeed try the food. "This chicken goes great with the salad here and I haven't dropped dead of poison yet." Zahn smiles good naturedly at Lysander. "Also, we never asked you your name or for that matter how you ended up coming to this party or abduction or whatever."

Alice who had stiffened a bit at Lysander's comments about poison relaxes a bit and immerses herself in mindfully eating the food one bite at a time.

One bite at a time sounds good.

"It was supposed to be a themed costume party, so I came prepared. Name's Lysander."

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. The invite we saw didn't say it was a costume party. Are you still in college or was the invitation posted more widely?"

"...I'm still in college. I was in Massachusetts before I came here."

"Well that's certainly a point in favor of teleportation rather than illusions since we were in California. We both attend UCLA in case that wasn't clear." She frowns, "maybe I should say attended."

"Well that's exciting, I think in my mental estimation that reduces the chance that the goal of this is to kill us, but I suppose aliens, magical creatures, or shadowy conspiracies could have really strange aesthetic preferences."

"I know being glib is part of how you cope with things Zahn but it wears a little at times, could you tone it down just a tad?"

"Yeah, I'll do my best."

"I like glib. I don't think the odds are high that anyone wants to kill us. This is some kind of social experiment; testing our psychological boundaries. It's pretty unethical."

"That seems like a reasonable hypothesis yeah. I don't want to make assumptions though, and testing boundaries often involves putting people under high-stress conditions."

"It does. It could be fun." 

"I suppose that depends on how breakable we turn out to be."

"This is not sounding particularly encouraging guys."

"It'll be fine. We won't worry about their motivations. Our plan doesn't change."

He walks around the area, looking through the rooms to see if his new friends missed anything.

There's the kitchen, when he walks out the door from the kitchen he finds himself at the end of a long hallway. As he walks along he'll find doors to a large bathroom, about a dozen bedrooms, a laundry room, and several closets. At the end of the hallway he can finds himself on the circular ramp that Zahn and Alice described. He can see down the middle to a raised bed with a tree and some bushes surrounded by benches. If he looks up there's a skylight with light streaming in from above.

He scrutinizes the sunlight. 

The sunlight is a bit redder than he's used to, but not in the way that he would typically see at sunset. The sky is also a bit greener than he is accustomed to.

That's terrifying.

He returns to the others.

"The sky looks different. The sunlight is the wrong color. That's kind of an important thing to mention!"

"What?" He goes to look out the window. "Huh, it was cloudy when we arrived. I don't think either of us noticed that the sky had cleared." He takes a deep breath. "That revises the capabilities of our abductors up, by a lot."

Alice follows him to the window, she takes a deep shuddering breath. "It also revises downwards the chance that we can ever go home, at least without their help. You were right Zahn. It's important to keep this place as a safe haven until we know more."

"Okay, okay, okay. This is okay. We know more now, it's just incredibly disconcerting. Let's hope it's not all like that."

She takes a few more deep breaths. "If they could teleport us here I see no reason why they can't teleport us back. We just need to find a working elevator and find the code that corresponds to one of the places we left from."

"We need to leave to find an elevator. Do you guys remember your codes? I think I remember mine."

Zahn pulls a handful of slips of paper out of his pocket. "I collected one of each. I was vaguely wondering if they were random or some kind of coded message."

"Which one did you type in?"

"We typed in the Red code, It's My Party"

"It fits Zahn's particular flavor of melancholy and glibness."

"Well maybe, neither of us have heard the original song so it's hard to know precisely, but the title fits."

"If we all used the same code, the other ones might lead to another floor in the same building...although we're clearly not relying on normal physics here."

"I suppose that's possible, some orderings of the colors would put red on the top floor. I'm finished eating. If the two of you are also done we can start exploring."

"Yeah, the food was really good, but I've had my fill. I want to be doing something."

"I'm ready. We should let the strapping young gentleman lead."

Zahn chuckles slightly. "Sure why not." He sets off down the hall and begins to follow the long sloping path. The next door they come to opens to reveal a lush greenhouse lit from above in the entryway transitioning to glass as it stretches out to the full length. Towards the entrance there are bins with tops on them that look similar to the kitchen cabinets. "Well this is interesting. I'm inclined to see this as a sign our abductors aren't trying to starve us."

"It's a very nice gingerbread house." 

Are there any plants that look unfamiliar? Biology isn't exactly his specialty, but he has a basic grounding. 

Some of the plants look pretty exotic, but nothing really goes beyond the bounds of what he's familiar with Earth plants looking like. There are things he can't recognize though, like that plant with the leaves the size of dinner plates or that one with the small orange berries.

"We should identify what we can."

He examines the berries. He avoids touching the plant.

It's a big greenhouse, they'll find corn, strawberries, rhubarb, celery, asparagus, leaks, scallions, carrots, potatoes, and many more.

"This looks good. Maybe the goal is to see how we handle division of labor. Who can cook?"

"I can some, but mostly camping type stuff, I don't have any fancy recipes memorized."

"I'm not a cook, I can heat up packaged meals and such but I've never known my way around a kitchen."

"Are there any other skills we really need? Who can handle a fight, who can run faster, who knows first aid. I know first aid, if it comes up, and I have a fairly good memory, though that's less obviously useful."

"I can fight, both unarmed and with the knives I carry. Zahn goes camping for vacations, so if we find some camping equipment he can use it."

Maddie arrives in an empty lobby.

She picks up the black slip of paper and tries the elevator. 

She's treated to a minute long elevator ride filled afflicted with a terrible headache and vertigo before finding herself in an empty lounge.

This is a particularly well-targeted practical joke.

She pockets the slip and looks around.

"Are we ready?"

Maddie's lounge has black trim, and luxurious couches. There's a counter dividing the lounge from a kitchen opposite the wall the elevator is on and a buffet to her right on exiting. The only exit in evidence is at the back of the kitchen. The windows reveal an overcast sky and a large pool below, on one side with a volleyball court on the other.

"Yeah, I've had enough of the greenhouse here. Let's go."

Off to explore! 

The next room is not quite a whole floor down and it's off at a different angle from the previous two levels. Opening the door reveals a small library, along the wall they enter through there are six computer screens with a keyboard underneath and chairs to sit at. There are stacks along both the left and right walls with work tables and comfy chairs in the middle between them. The back wall is a massive window. "Well this is looking less and less like a survival challenge. I'm honestly not sure what goals might be served by making this place."

"If it's a social experiment, there are a lot of reasons to have this. Maybe we're not allowed outside, maybe there are more people coming, maybe we'll never see anyone else again but we have full run of the place..."

He takes a supposedly comfy chair. 

Zahn walks over to a computer and starts fiddling with the controls. "Huh, there's an encyclopedia feature here," he goes silent for a minute poking through the various sections. "This looks important. It's an article on symbols that might be found around this place. One of them is labeled as the marker for lethal danger."

"Right, time to memorize it."

He takes a look.

After a few minutes of screaming at the elevator, it looks like she's stuck here.

She exits through the kitchen, clutching her slip of paper tightly.

Alice also comes over to memorize the list. "Some of these seem like they'd be really obvious and present all over the place. I didn't see the symbol for water near the sinks. I wonder when these symbols will be used."

Maddie finds a hallway with several bedrooms, a bathroom, a laundry room, and some closets. It leads to a ramp that spirals downwards.

She'll search the closets and bathroom for anything sharp or toxic. 

"Maybe we'll see more of them once we leave the starting area. That would make sense, if that was supposed to be a home base."

The bathroom contains soap, it is not particularly toxic. The Laundry room might be more useful, it has bleach and other assorted cleaning products for clothes. One of the closets contains cleaning supplies more suited towards floors. If Maddie wants something sharp the kitchen had knives.

"Yeah, I just hope that the ones that might get us trapped or injured are consistently and prominently displayed."

"Survival challenge back to being our top theory, then?"

Is there a clear path out of here? 

She's not very skilled with knives, but they'll do. 

The bleach will be too hard to carry, but maybe she'll find something later.

She goes down the ramp. 

"I mean maybe, or maybe it's just that some useful things are dangerous. I'm blanking on what that might entail though."

The only door out of the library is the one they entered through.

The first door Maddie finds upon opening the ramp leads to a greenhouse. There are some bins that open from the top.

"It looks like they're trying to be complete. Everything we could need. Maybe we're pets."

It's a shame she didn't bring her camera. 

Does any of this food look easy to carry? 

Alice shudders, "That's better than some possibilities. But I hope whoever took us had a greater purpose in mind that entertainment."

Out of what she can easily identify that's edible raw, there is carrots, celery, cucumbers, peppers, strawberries and tomatoes. 

She empties her purse of all but the essentials, and fills it with carrots and peppers. 

"We should go back. Finding out what's outside is our top priority."

If Maddie piles it neatly it will all be there when she gets back, Otherwise some of the more plausibly trash-like items might disappear if she's away too long.

"Sure," The next room bears some resemblance to a compressed hospital ward, there are beds with nothing various life-support looking monitors around them, arranged along most of the walls, the far left corner has what looks to be an infant intensive care unit, and the far right corner has a couple tables with the fittings for telesurgery. In the middle of the room are several other types of tables for things from dentistry to the sort of exam table you'd see in a physician's office. "Well, this would be really reassuring if I thought any of us knew how to use all of this. Maybe that telesurgery setup is run by AI though. I wouldn't put it past this place."

"Maybe. Do you think we're the only ones? It seems like a lot of work to put flyers up in multiple cities, just for three people."

Too bad for the trash-like items.

Next room?

"I doubt it, maybe they had lower turnout than they expected though."

Maddie opens the door to find a library, there are stacks along the side walls, with worktables and comfy-looking chairs scattered between them. Along the wall she entered through there are six computers. At one of them sits a woman who looks up when she enters. There's a large backpack next to her. "Hi there, welcome to wherever this is. I'm guessing from the knife that you're feeling a bit paranoid, you probably weren't expecting something weird to happen, when you got on the elevator."

"That sounds right. How can I find the host?"

She stays by the wall.

"We shouldn't assume none of them are plants. We can trust each other, but that's all I'd rely on. Everyone else could be in on this."

"Well considering that they have teleportation technology I don't really know how I'd begin to guess. They might be a really long way away from here."

Zahn peers at Lysander. "I mean I guess you could take that stance, but I'm not sure why others would be any more or less trustworthy than you. I've known Alice since before college but we just met you."

"Where were you before they brought you here?"

"You could take that stance. Shall we go?"

"Oh, there's an idea, maybe they had multiple elevators come teleporters. Mine was in Boston."

"I mean it pays to be careful, if someone is acting suspicious I'll keep the idea in mind but my inclination tends to be to trust that people aren't out to get me."

"Los Angeles. It was supposed to be a frat party, and I never go to those things. Just my luck." 

"That's cute."

They continue on.

"I'm sorry, I suppose I might regret taking the risk at some point but for now I'm too excited. Still you didn't come with the same expectations."

"Zahn's an optimist. I'm not too the same degree but I am a decent judge of character. I'm pretty sure you at least aren't a plant. I'll keep it in mind if we meet anyone else."

"What are you trying to do now?"

Further down the rabbit hole they go. 

"Well, this place has something of an encyclopedia, and a way to get a job working for the interface which grants you extra access to encyclopedia articles, and other privileges. I applied to be a medical technician, since the other jobs sounded kinda boring and it accepted me provisionally so I've been reading up on all the advanced medical systems this place has to offer. The next door down the ramp is this super-sophisticated looking clinic. Now that I'm a med tech I get to play with some of it but, some of the coolest features are still locked till I finish my training."

Apparently the next room is a work room? It has some sturdy tables and the side walls are lined with cabinets. The back wall has a counter with a couple sinks. The cabinets are filled with board games, card games, and arts supplies.

"Huh, this is nice in a way. I'm not sure how useful it is practically speaking, but it's one more way to stave off the boredom."

"You're working for the interface. How did you find out you could do that?"

"That's what it looks like. Are either of you any good at art?"

She points at the computer. "It's a computer I pressed a key and the screen lit up, it was pretty obvious from there."

"Not particularly, I've done some sketching but nothing particularly impressive."

She sits at another computer. 

What's on these things, then?

"I'm not sure why anyone wants to watch us play board games!"

The screen comes on revealing an interface more like that of a tablet than a desktop computer to one side are four icons, labelled: Employment, Encyclopedia, Interfaces, and Settings. The Employment section offers jobs in gardening, janitorial work, and security. The Encyclopedia has a number of sub-sections and a search feature. The Interfaces section is largely empty but notes that additional options can be unlocked by connecting other devices. The settings page displays at the top that these settings are for Citizen #12. It offers a light and a dark theme. Optional speech recognition input modes, and some other minutia. 

"Yeah maybe, I'm not sure if anyone is watching but if they are I doubt that their grand design is to watch us play board games."

She'll read the encyclopedia quietly, until Riley interrupts.

"We should keep going. Whatever this place is, we need to map it out better."

The Encyclopedia has a lot of content but a lot of it is kinda weirdly specific. It has articles on fruits, medical conditions, the proper methods for removing certain types of stains, and an extensive directory for a rather absurdly sized mall. There are also articles on recreational facilities, though not very specific ones, a dictionary of symbols which has rather concerning one's mentioning lethal danger mixed in with a lot of innocuous symbols for water and food, and library of all things. Riley is rather unlikely to get bored before her.

"Agreed." The next room has the general appearance of a dance studio. The walls are largely lined with mirrors. Tucked into some of the corners are mats, while there are bits of exercise equipment and free weights secreted along the back wall. "So it isn't just more intellectual pursuits they intend to support us in apparently." Alice jumps upwards and lands with a bit of a spring in her step. "There's some sort of spring system in the floor. It cushioned that landing just a little."

She'll focus on memorizing the symbols for a good while.

"I think I'll pass for now. Better to save our energy until we've explored everything."

Eventually Riley gets up. "I'm going to go fiddle with the clinic a bit. Do you want to come watch?"

"Yeah, not quite my speed of exercise, though I'm sure Alice will drag me here to help her practice at some point. Onto the next room." The next room is a very nicely appointed entertainment room, there are couches and chairs arranged around a big television with tiered seating. There's a table next to the TV with a remote on it. Along one wall are shelves and shelves of DVDs. "Huh, that's less state of the art than I've come to expect of this place."

"Sure, if you don't mind."

Her phone probably doesn't get service here, but she'll regret not checking. If that doesn't work, she checks the camera.

"Part of the mind game. Isolation, timelessness, lack of tethers...we were from the same year, right?"

"Of course not, I especially don't mind if you let me use you as an experimental subject but I kinda doubt you'll agree."

Unless she has a satellite phone it does not have service. The camera on her phone works fine either way.

"I think so, 2017 right? Think it's worth trying to turn on the TV?"

Good enough.

"What kind of experiments? I want to keep all my fingers."

"Sure. Maybe they have an orientation video."

"Ooh, there's a few drugs with plausibly recreational uses I haven't heard of before, I'm not one to dabbly myself but if you are that could be interesting. It's also set up to let me install IUDs if you want one of those. If you're feeling a bit less adventurous I'd be interested to see what happens if I tell it to give someone a checkup. The documentation there says that it's strictly diagnostic, though after problems are detected they can be subsequently corrected."

Zahn walks over and turns on the TV, CNN is splashed across the screen. The commentators are talking about some political matter or another. "Well we seem to be getting TV. That sounds like it's plausibly todays news. The time matches my watch."

"No drugs if I have access to anything that's plausibly a weapon. Medical stuff sounds fine as long as we don't start with surgery."

"Why would we need to see this? It can't be about isolation if we're still connected...maybe we're supposed to draw in more participants? But then it would be easier to get in touch with someone."

Riley leads them to a clinic identical to the one encountered by the group at the red party. "If we're going with the physical you need to get up on that exam table in the center. It says it should be fine with normal clothing."

"I don't really know. This whole place is so weird. It isn't built like a human would build and maybe their purpose isn't one we'd understand."

She gets on the table.

"Do you know a lot about centaurs?"

"Comforting."

Is the news particularly interesting, or is it just the usual.

"You mean they mythical creatures?" She looks taken aback for a moment. "Interface begin physical for the citizen on exam table one."

A smooth female voice answers, "Beginning physical examination. Please lie back."

Zahn sighs. "I wonder if the people who built this place and brought us here are operating under some sort of limitations we're unaware of."

The news is utterly and annoyingly normal. Perhaps that'll change if they check back later. Zahn watches for a little while too.

"Maybe if we find a more local news channel and wait a while they'll report on the case of the disappearing college students. It might take a day or two though."

"Uncontrollably violent, centaurs. Lustful, wild, and unbridled of passion. Except for one. Chiron was a healer. Self-disciplined, civilized, he was above his brethren."

She lies back.

"No phones, but we have TV. And the elevator wouldn't take you guys back, right?"

"That sounds like it's related to one of the greek myths. I never paid that much attention to mythology."

An arm extends from the side of the table and overs over top of her it makes a first pass from head to toe then it does a second pass of her head and torso moving slower.

The smooth female voice speaks "Citizen 12 is physically within expected norms. She is currently fertile and will continue to be for approximately the next 14 hours. She is-"

"Interface, stop verbal readout, archive to Citizen 12's medical file. Well, that's an interesting choice of the first detail to report. I wonder what that implies about whoever made this place."

"The keyboard was dead, it didn't do anything. Even if it wasn't, I don't think the same code would take us back."

"Should I learn how to use it, or can you examine yourself?"

"I hate riddles. Let's go." 

"Near as I can tell you need to be certified to operate this place. I'm certified for some of its functions but not all of them. I don't think you're certified for any of them, though I think if you or someone else hauled you onto the emergency bed in the back," she points to the one that looks like it's set up for surgery, "and asked for help it would do its best to fix you, just not necessarily perfectly according to your preferences. Anyway, if you hop off the table I'll have it examine me. Unless you want any part of you examined in more depth, I think it just looks for dangerous conditions in a standard physical."

The next exit leads to the outdoors. "Well, if we didn't know we were on another planet I would say we should head out this door and not look back. As is, I'm not sure."

"I should get certified. It's just the two of us, so we should build redundancy in."

She gets up.

"I'm worried about the possibility that the door locks behind us. Someone should stay inside, even if it turns out to be safe we don't want to be trapped."

Riley jumps onto the table and lies down. "Interface, begin physical for me." The arms sweep out and over her body.

"Citizen 9 is within expected physical norms, she is fitted with a fertility disrupting implant within her uterus. She..."

"Interface stop verbal readout, archive to Citizen 9's medical file." She sits back up. "Well good to know I'm healthy. I can show you how to try to apply for the certification, I'm not sure how successful you'll be, I'm premed and I read ahead a lot and that test was still beyond me in a lot of places. There are other positions though, maybe one of those would fit you better, they all have rather menial sounding job titles but who knows what perks each brings."

"I'm willing to be the one to stay inside."

Back to the computer to look at other jobs.

"Ready, Zahn?"

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.

"If it's just the two of us, janitor seems most useful..."

Does it say what the gardener would do?

"Two of us, two paths. Cute. I don't think we should play along."

"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?"

"The gardener could be useful for crops. I'm thinking either that or janitor."

"Yeah. Keep going until we reach the edge of their little sandbox."

"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?"

Janitor it is. She reads up.

"Lead the way." 

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."

When she's read everything there is to read cursorily, she'll take the test.

"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.

"Is there one area for each colored slip? When I came in, I saw six."

"She wouldn't follow us, would she? You know her better. We can report back."

"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."

"Did you find a map? Maybe even a conveniently labeled one?"

"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."

"Alright, sounds reasonable." Zahn starts walking back the way they came.

"Have you checked it out? We should probably take a look and see what we can use." 

Back to Alice, then. 

"I've looked a bit at the directory and been downstairs to confirm it matches. I haven't made up a list of what stores specifically it makes sense to check out yet. Give the distance, I think the bike stores are something we should check early in the list, hopefully they'll have some way to haul cargo around."

For experimental purposes Alice stands back and lets them try to open the door. It works. "Welcome back, did you find anything interesting?"

"Makes sense. I'm going to take a look at the directory."

"Not really. I think we need to go further, but we decided to come back so you wouldn't stress too much. We can revisit it later."

"Alright, in case you haven't seen them we have a greenhouse, a games/arts and crafts room, a tv room, and a gym/dojo. Not sure if that'd affect your selections."

"I wasn't worried just yet, but thank you for your concern Zahn. Do you think it's safe enough for the three of us to go together when you go back out or should I wait here again? I might get a book from the library and a chair for lack of anything better to do if I'm going to be waiting for a while."

"We could split it in half, and each read a set number of entries? Skipping anything that we have covered. If there are other people, the most important thing is getting to them or signaling where we are somehow."

"We didn't see anything too terrifying, but we might if we go further. Your choice."

"Well the directory lists 27000 stores. I'm not sure we can realistically read about all of them. There is a category feature though, that's how I figured out where the other home complexes are."

"I can take care of myself thanks. I'll come along."

She takes a look at categories.

Clothes, hygiene, non-vegetable food...bedding? Cameras?

"Maybe not right away...I'm ready for a break."

There are stores that look to plausibly carry all of that. Many with familiar brand names. Riley is merrily skimming through some categories herself. "Huh, it looks like there's at least one store that sells satellite phones, I wonder if those work here."

"Alright, do you want to go back upstairs to the library, or the lounge? Or do you want to check out the basement?

Is there an index?

"We can try the basement next, but first let's use the lounge."

There's a map that shows how the malls are laid out, a directory which you can filter by category that lists the name of stores along with their mall color and position along the spiral, and an abridged catalog which has 'notable items' listed very briefly cross linked to the store or stores that sell them. The notable items list is a mix between the mundane, various foodstuffs and clothing, to the satellite phones Riley noticed, to ATVs and kayaks, to Mall Store Locks and many more items.

"Sounds alright." The last segment of the ramp twists around for longer than any of the other segments covering almost three floors of vertical distance before letting out into a nicely appointed lobby with tasteful plant decorations. There's a large opening onto a mall corridor. The storefronts are longer than you usually see on malls and the corridor curves out of sight in both directions. "Well, that's... not what I was expecting."

Working phones sound good.

Any medical supplies that they don't have?

"This is good. They expect us to be alive for a while, if things are this well-stocked. This is a lot to explore manually, though."

"The clinic is actually pretty lacking in first aid supplies, it looks much more oriented towards comprehensive automated care. It's kinda weird really. A pharmacy or convenience store is probably one of the first places we should visit if we're going exploring."

"Yeah, I'm not sure whether we'd want to explore here or above ground first. I wish we had a map."

"Pharmacy, phones, food, hygiene products...that's everything urgent and useful, I think. Are we ready?"

"They should have one posted somewhere in the mall. If this works like real malls. Let's look around for a few minutes, and then come back."

"Sure, I can read more anytime." Riley puts on her backpack and shows the way down to the mall.

"Makes sense to me." Zahn starts walking in a random direction. After a few minutes no maps are obvious but there is a bike shop just coming into view. "Bikes, those will be useful whether we're exploring here or outside."

They walk down.

"A lot of ground to travel, yeah. I'm not great with a bike, but I guess I have time to work it out."

A challenger approaches, stopping his bike a few feet away.

"...hi. That makes five of us. What's with the costume?"

They pass by the doors to the outside. "I haven't been outside but it looks nice."

"Hi there, I only count four, who's the fifth?"

"Do you think it's safe?"

She peers outside.

"A friend of mine was with me, but she took off on her bike. I don't know which way she went."

"I thought it was a costume party. Where are you coming from?" 

"What do you mean, where?"

"It doesn't have the symbols for danger or being a one-way door so I think at least the immediate surroundings are safe, not sure how far you can walk without danger though."

"Well, apparently the elevator that brought you to the party was something like a teleporter and there were such installations in several cities. Alice and I came from California and Lysander here came from Massachusetts."

"I think I can handle it. We should probably carry water around, actually, and food, I didn't think of that."

"Me and Stiles are from California too. Have you guys seen signs of anyone else, who might have brought us here?" 

"Well I have a backpack, maybe we can find one for you too, or if we're keeping mostly to the paths we can bring stuff with us on a cargo-rack when biking or something."

"No, this place is eerily empty for how big it's looking to be. Do you have any idea how far you had to bike to get here?"

"Maybe both, then? Non-essentials in the cart in case we have to leave it."

"I don't know, around twenty miles. Where in California?"

"Yeah, sounds like a good plan."

"Near Los Angeles, that's a pretty long bike ride to take with no destination in mind."

They head out.

Bikes?

"It wasn't that bad. Kind of exhilarating. I probably won't be doing something like that again, though."

There's a bike store relatively close to the mall lobby. "Wow, these are really nice bikes." They are, they have disk brakes and good gear systems.

"I consider myself pretty fit but I wouldn't want to do that at a whim, so that's understandable."

"Nice. Let's start gathering supplies."

"I really should try to find Stiles, before she gets too far."

"Where would she go? Down another one of these paths?"

"She did want to go outside. But we just came all this way, I'm not sure."

"Sure." Riley side adjusts a bike to fit her and then attaches a cargo trailer. Then she consults the vague map she's drawn in one of her notebooks. "I'm ready when you are. First stop CVS."

"How far back did you lose her?"

CVS it is. Pain relief, vitamins, any ointments and creams and rubs that seem vaguely helpful...gum can't hurt, really.

"If we find any cameras, we're stopping. A phone doesn't cut it."

"I just went to look at the stores, couldn't have been a quarter mile. She must have gone in the other direction, I would have seen her." 

"I think there might be a Best Buy on our route, they probably have a camera." Riley remounts her bike. Next stop Krogers.

"Alright, well we can get bikes and come with you or we can wait here."

She grabs anything that looks easy to prepare. 

"She could be anywhere by now, but she'll probably come back if she doesn't find anything- or gets hurt. There are three of you, maybe one could come with me?" 

It's a grocery store, if she tried to grab the entire frozen dinners section they won't be able to transport it. Riley is more focused on picking up some spices and various staple foods. She wants the kitchen to be well stocked. "Do you think we're going to lose access to this place Maddie?"

Zahn exchanges a look with Alice, then nods slightly. "Alright, I'll go with you, unless you wanted to go Lysander?"

"If being the janitor works like I hope, we won't. I don't think we should assume, though."

"No, go ahead, take the brave one."

"Okay. Nice to meet you, brave one."

Riley shrugs. "Alright, fair enough." Next stop is the satellite phone store, but they notice a camera shop on the way and stop.

"Zahn. Give me a minute to get a bike set up the way I like it and we can go." He steps into the bike store to do just that.

...if expense isn't a concern, she can get whatever she wants.

She grabs a camera bag, too, so they don't overload the cart.

"Sure. I'll wait out here."

He definitely doesn't stare awkwardly at the total stranger responsible for splitting their party. 

Nope.

"Ooh, a DSLR that's nice. What do you want the camera for though?"

"It'll be ok Lysander. If you're really worried we can go with them."

"For taking pictures. It's what I would do if we weren't stuck in a mysterious complex, so I figured I should do it anyway."

"I'm not that worried. Someone should stay here."

He waves goodbye to Zahn and Greg.

"Oh, so you're a photographer, that makes sense." Onto the satellite phone store.

"So, anything you want to do while we're waiting for them?"

"Should we take more than two? We could store them in decent hiding places, in case we lose ours."

"There's probably something we could be doing, but mostly I want to do something uncomplicated. Let's swap stories."

As soon as Zahn is ready, they can go.

"So how are you guys holding up? The other two looked kind of tense."

"I think taking a couple spares might make sense in case one gets broken or we run into other people we want to stay in touch with. We also need to figure out how to activate them."

"I'm a political science major. I... I tell most people that I'm hoping to work for the State Department, but my real dream is to work for the CIA. I figure if we're stuck here together I should be honest about that. Zahn and I have been friends since we were eleven or so."

"Lysander thinks you might be a plant from whoever brought us here. He's a little bit on edge with this whole thing, I think we all are to a degree. Alice, she tends to be either very playful or very serious and this situation has her in her serious mode."

It looks like they'll need to connect them to something. The only place with the right kind of technology is the library, so they'll have to make their way back.

"A spy? Impressive. I'm aspiring to world-famous mathematician, myself."

"A plant, really? I'm a horrible liar, but I guess he doesn't know that. I guess it is pretty weird, but you gotta roll with the punches, I think. Otherwise you get tripped up and lose focus."

"Interesting, are you still in the learn the basics phase or have you started researching one of the open problems?"

"I don't think this place was built by humans. I suppose human collaborators are theoretically possible, but in that case I'd expect this place to be less weird."

"I'm trying to pick a problem, I've done enough learning for now."

"That's true. Why do they want humans, anyway? Do you think it's a zoo?"

"I'm happy to listen but I don't particularly have any expertise in mathematics."

"I honestly have no idea. If this is some sort of alien reality TV show or zoo they gave us an awfully big place to get lost in."

He summarizes the open problems in the field eagerly. 

"Not if we keep finding more people. Maybe it's a gladiator sort of thing."

She listens and makes affirming noises. Occasionally, she'll ask a question.

"In what sense? Do you think there's a meaningfully limited amount of resources?"

"...so, anyway, that's what I'm doing. It's probably not worth minoring in fashion design when physics is an option, but I've considered it."

"I don't know, I'm not really good at strategy, I don't know what aliens who wanted reality TV would do. What do you think this is?"

"Well, hopefully one of those problems will yield to your efforts."

"I really don't know yet. I feel like I'm missing clues. I expect that there is a reason for all of this but I haven't seen anything that looks like a plot hook."

Greg might mention the cryptic messages written on the pillar in the center of the mall.

"Hopefully. What's your angle on the spying?"

"Well, hang on, there was a pillar with some kind of message written on it. I couldn't make heads or tails of it."

"The truth is that I probably have an overly romantic picture of what it's like. But I enjoy trying to understand people and playing games of I know, you know. It might turn out that if I actually get the job I won't enjoy it."

"That sounds very much like a plot hook, once we find your friend we should write down that message somewhere."

"A job is a job. I don't think you need to enjoy the day to day if you love your field."

"Yeah."

They keep searching.

"To an extent yes, though spywork is kinda a risky business. If I become an analyst that's pretty safe being a field agent is every bit as dangerous as being a soldier." Alice glances about. "Do you see the button there?" she's pointing to a small button in the upper left corner of the archway leading into to the bike store. "I wonder what it does."

Indeed they do. Zahn is slowly getting a better picture of how the stores are laid out. Most of the stores are medium sized, well medium sized for this weird mall, the medium sized ones are all around thirty meters wide. There are also smaller stores about half with width of the next smallest grouping, and larger stores that have to be something like sixty meters long. These longer stores are things like department stores, supermarkets and hardware stores.

"I think you can handle yourself. Case in point, finding the button. We probably shouldn't press anything until we're more sure what it does. Do you think they have something helpfully explanatory inside?"

"I'm not really sure," She takes a few steps and glances more closely at the archway. "There's just a bit of texture on the top of the arch there. It blends in really well though. Maybe the button is to close up the store, like the metal grating you see to close up stores in cities. There's no tracks though."

"...one of us on the inside, one on the outside?"

"That should work." She moves to stand inside and reaches out to press the button. "When you're ready."

As soon as they're both in position, he nods.

Alice reaches up and pushes the button. A thick clear barrier starts to descend from the ceiling. Alice reaches out and touches it. After about ten seconds the entire archway is filled except for a small cut out around the button. Then there's a faint snap hiss sound, a bit like what the cabinets in the kitchen and the bins in the greenhouse make when they close and the barrier flashed for a moment. Hesitantly, Alice reaches out to touch it again. "On the way down it felt a bit soft, but now it has no give at all to it."

"Don't do that again! We didn't know touching it was safe, who knows what could have happened. Come back outside, we should stay together."

Alice glances at the barrier between them but then shrugs and presses the button again. There's another snap-hiss sound and the barrier begins rising upwards again. When it finishes receding she steps forwards out of the store.

"What else do you think we can do out here? We shouldn't wander too far..."

He looks around for any unusual stores nearby. 

The stores within sight are all pretty normal, clothing shops, a few food stores and some novelty shops.

He doesn't want to go too far just yet.

"I guess we'll just wait."

"Makes sense."

"I'd been planning for this costume party for weeks."

"Do you go to a lot of them, or were you mostly excited because they're uncommon?"

"They're not that common. I love the chance to really indulge my fashion sense. Costumes let me play around with different themes and motifs more than I can ever do day to day."

"That makes sense, I like dressing up for fancy parties too. I'm not skilled enough to make my own dresses though."

"I didn't make this, but I have made some Halloween costumes. I care more about design than the actual labor involved, which is one of many reasons I stuck with math over fashion."

"Well you have good taste regardless."

"Thanks. You two were expecting something without a dress code?" 

"Yeah, I'm kinda confused by the fact that the invitations varied."

"It's not really more confusing than this place. Different invitations in different cities, whoever this is wanted a lot of reach."

"Yeah, I'm not sure what to make of that either. I don't feel like the college population varies that much from city to city."

"Maybe they specifically wanted geographic range. We haven't met anyone from China or Brazil yet, but they could be in here somewhere."

"Yes potentially. I suppose we might find out at some point."

"Yeah. Once we get everyone together."

Meanwhile, Zahn spots someone standing outside a store.