Jelly sat on her hind legs and licked her paws.
“Right, let’s go,” Tor clutched his screen and planted his foot on the curve of the wall. “It’s okay, follow me. It’s perfectly safe.”
“I trust you,” Wool smiled and stepped onto the wall, following behind Tor as he walked to the open tile in the ceiling.
He stepped through and offered Wool a helping hand. “Just through here.”
“Will Jelly be okay?”
“She’s perfectly fine,” Tor said, “Take my hand, and prepare for a little disorientation.”
He pulled her through, allowing the tile to slide shut behind their exiting the room.
Jelly looked around at the brightly lit tiles and squinted. One of them began to change shape.
All the others changed, too. Very slowly.
The cylinder flattened out and folded onto itself, startling Jelly. “Meoowww…”
The corners of the flat surface branched out and locked together, forming a cuboid structure all around her from every angle.
The silence was completely deafening.
For Jelly, it wasn’t a matter of escape. If she wanted to run away, she wouldn’t be too sure she’d run back to the same place.
So, she did what any cat would have done under the circumstances – she made for what she thought was the door. One of many of perfectly-squared tiles measuring ten by ten feet.
When she arrived, she hopped onto it, surprised that it had its own gravity. The door had become the floor.
Jelly whined and looked around. Six walls, a ceiling and a floor, all containing twenty-four tiles.
“Jelly?” Tor’s voice buzzed into the room. She shrieked and jumped into the air, wondering where the voice came from. “Shh, it’s okay, girl. Calm down.”
Tor sat at the Pure Genius deck with an audience watching the screen from behind.
Bonnie, Wool, Jaycee, Haloo, Baldron, and Katz were captivated by the visual of Jelly in the cuboid on the large screen.
“Activating Saturn Cry,” Tor said, hitting a button on the console. The familiar static-hiss started to play.
“What’s going on?” Bonnie asked. “Can she hear it?”
“Yes, the message is coming at her from all directions,” Tor said. “We’re closer to the source of the signal, so she’s in a position to respond due to the strength and quality.”
A twang of an electric guitar shot through the room.
Jelly jumped into the air as a visual waveform of the guitar twang flew around her. She landed on the adjacent tile, somewhat disappointed that she hadn’t caught the fleeting waveform.
“Nine… ten,” Tor said, analyzing his controls, “Eleven… and…”
WHUMP.
A blast of pink audio illuminated the cube. Jelly tossed herself into the air and tried to claw at it. She shrieked at the top of her lungs and landed onto what she knew to be the ceiling.
Her paws hit the tile, pressing it like a button. It turned pink and displayed a readout in the middle of the cuboid.
“Amaziant. Someone take a note of that,” Tor looked at Baldron, who unfolded his screen and scribbled down the set of numbers:
“Coordinates?”
“Could be,” Tor said, raising the volume of the audio message. “Hang on. Fifteen… sixteen…”
“We’re waiting for the twentieth second?” Tripp asked. “The second bump?
“Yes, shh.”
The guitar sound crept into the hiss and struck three successive chords.
The second whump blasted around the cuboid, scaring Jelly across the middle of the structure.
Another blast of pink light zipped from her previous tile to the one directly opposite. She tried to catch it, but it was far too fast for her.
The pink waveform splashed against the tile, moving out for Jelly to land against it.
The tile lit up and produced another number.
“Meow,” Jelly dug her hind legs into the tile and rolled over, angry with herself.
“Baldron,” Tor said, “Capture the result, please.”
“Got it,” he said, writing it down. “One, niner, two, five, one, three, one, six.”
“Nineteen and thirteen are prime numbers,” Haloo said, “But the others aren’t.”
“We’re clearly not dealing with an intelligent life form, whatever it is,” Tripp said. “What do we know of these coordinates?”
“We don’t know yet till we reach the twenty-sixth second,” Baldron looked at the screen and poised himself, ready to capture the next set of numbers.
The hiss died down, replaced by four successive chords from the sound that resembled an electric guitar chord.
“Twenty-four. Twenty-five…” Tor muttered, “And…”
Whump.
Jelly didn’t know where to turn. The cuboid room seemed to revolve on its axis, tipping her away from her tile.
She shrieked and dug her thumb claw into the side of the tile, clinging on for dear life.
A third and final pink image screeched around the center of Pure Genius, toying with Jelly.
She propelled herself from the tile and flew toward the haze of warbled pink sound, intending to ravage it.
“What is that, it sounds familiar?” Bonnie asked.
“Da-da-da-dum,” Wool hummed to herself. “Like Beethoven’s fifth?”
“No, that’s impossible—” Katz said.
“—Anything is possible,” Tor kept his eye on the screen. “Keep watching.”
Jelly burst through the pink cloud and purred, suspended in the center of the room. Her metal whiskers buzzed to life, causing an electrical spark. Her face pushed back under her hind legs.
“What’s happening to her?”
“That third and final bump,” Tor pointed at the screen. “Look, it’s disappeared.”
Jelly hit the ceiling and meowed as loud as she could. The tile flashed under her feet, upsetting her.
“That’s enough. Get her out of that room,” Wool went to walk away, only for Baldron to keep her back.
“No, it’s over. We’re done. Anderson’s safe.”
“That stupid room is scaring her.”
“Be quiet, Wool,” Tor said, punching the three lit-up tiles into the computer. “Here we go. Panels twelve, twenty… and twenty-six.”
Everyone held their breath. Katz leaned into the screen and watched Jelly licking her paws, quite happy with herself.
“Twelve, twenty, twenty-six?” he said.
“Yep,” Tor smiled. “The exact points in the message where those bumps happen.
“But what does that—”
The final set up of numbers appeared in the middle of the room.
“Got that, Baldron?” Tor asked.
“Yep, the entire string is complete.”
“Get her out of there,” Tor looked over to Wool. “Make sure you grab her once she’s out. She’s likely to be upset. Bring her down slowly.”
“Right,” Wool marched off toward the door. “Open it up.”
“Okay, all we have to do is feed the coordinates into Pure Genius and see what the result is. Should take about an hour.”
“An hour?” Tripp asked. “Why so long?”
“We’re expecting over a trillion permutations. It could be less but, either way, we need to give it time to analyze the data.”
The door to Pure Genius slid open, revealing Jelly sitting on the ceiling.
“Meow.”
Wool look up and held out her arms. “Hey, Jelly. Come to me.”
She purred and remained seated, licking at her right paw.
“Don’t play the fool, Jelly. You can’t stay in there all day,” Wool snapped her fingers. “Let’s go, come on.”
Wool returned to the crew with Jelly in her arms. Everyone applauded and cheered.