© 2026 Richard Taylor
Maurice smiled. The voice in his ear had just told him to "go to infra-red" if there was nothing in the visible spectrum. Fool. He didn't have to "go" anywhere. He could see in the infra-red. It was part of his visible spectrum.
There wasn't much to see anyway. The room was pretty featureless. Three doors. Not quite the same size. Annoying. The one on the left slightly wider. Right, slightly taller. Ahead, not quite rectangular, on the wonk.
He took a half step forward, carefully. Now his right foot was on solid wood and his left had found carpet, or a rug. Looking down there were "hot spots" on the rug which indicated some kind of electrical device beneath it. Mo withdrew to the cold hard flooring.
The voice was saying something about tactical inference favouring the centre door as the best strategy. Mo took out the earpiece and slipped it into his trouser pocket. He smiled as he imagined the voice purposefully offering tactical support to his balls.
Suddenly the centre door slid open with the whine of steel on steel. Mo raised his gun as a man, also armed, stepped slowly into the room. He was dressed in similar tactical clothing. He was pointing his gun at Mo. Mo said nothing. He watched, finger on the trigger.
"Hey" said the man in a strong accent that Mo couldn't quite place.
"No guns?" he added, raising both hands to the sides of his head.
The door started to slide shut, still protesting. Mo shot the man twice in the chest and once in the head. He fell backwards against the door as it clunked shut. Mo waited for two whole minutes, then retrieved the man's gun. He walked purposefully towards the door on the right, which slid open smoothly and silently as he neared.
"Different" thought Mass as the new room's lighting smoothly brightened on his arrival. It was circular for a start. With only one door. Which seemed to be moving?
The walls were featureless, there was no sound, but surely it was the room rotating, not the door moving? He was about to go and touch the wall to find out when something on the table made a noise. He turned rapidly.
The table was plain and wooden. About a metre square on the top. It looked oddly small in the room, which must have been 10 metres in diameter. Mass was irritated by its position off centre.
On the table was a wooden box. At least, Mass assumed it was a box, and not just a block of wood, because there was a sound coming from it. A knocking as if there was something inside trying to get out. He strained his eyes to see if the box moved when the knocks rapped. It didn't.
Mass moved around the room at the same distance from the table. The door was on the opposite side of the room now to where he'd come in. The off centre table being his only reference. Painted on the sides and top of the box were dots, faintly visible, but definitely circular dots. It was a large die.
The knocking stopped. Mass rushed to the table and threw the die to the floor. It rolled all the way to the wall, hit it and rolled back a bit. The light in the room faded to 20% apart from a spotlight on the die. There were six dots on the top face.
"Is that good?" murmured Mass under his breath.
The room went suddenly dark for 3 seconds. When the lights came back on the table and the die were gone. There was a man standing where the die had landed. He was holding a large knife that appeared to be coated in blood.
Without hesitation Mass raised his gun and fired in one single movement. He hit the man in the chest and he fell backwards towards the wall. Before he landed the floor opened beneath Mass and he plunged downward into darkness.
It was the first time that Matt had been shot wearing his trusty vest. "Ow" didn't really do it justice. He'd been told it felt like being hit in the chest with a hammer. But he'd never been hit with a hammer so how should he know what that felt like? It hurt, a lot, that's what.
He turned slightly to the left. "Ow". He probably had a broken rib.
There was a faint sound of someone else breathing. Matt held his breath to listen. No, two people. He tried to stay frozen but his chest hurt. "Ow" slipped out again.
A single small light ahead of him glowed into being. It looked like a table lamp, but it was on the floor; and didn't appear to be plugged in anywhere.
Matt was right, there were two other men. Roughly equally spaced around the light. He couldn't see any walls behind them. A quick glance behind didn't reveal any wall, or anything else, behind him.
When he looked closer at the men he completely failed to notice that one of them was the man who had just recently shot him. Which was fair enough, since all three of them were now completely naked. The room was freezing. Like the other men Matt was shivering, but he hadn't noticed yet, because his chest hurt, a lot.
No-one spoke. No-one moved. Matt estimated the distance to the lamp at about 5 metres. Both the other men were the same height and build as him. In fact, all three of them were remarkably similar. As the light continued to brighten their differences became more apparent: the man to his left had reddish hair and a short wound in his abdomen where he'd been stabbed, quite recently; the guy on the right had fairer hair and tattoos on both upper arms.
Still the silence. Still the stillness.
Matt spoke first "Morning gents". He wasn't even sure it was morning. Or what day it was, in fact. But his Scottish accent was strong and proud and conveyed everything that needed to be said. For now.
The man with the tattoos nodded. Matt could see now that one of the tats was a red dragon with something in Welsh written above and below.
Suddenly the wounded guy started to laugh. "Oh, brilliant" he said after a few seconds. He glanced between Matt and the other guy, then said, with a broad smile "A Scotsman, a Welshman and an Englishman walk into a bar..."