The alarm wasn’t supposed to go off yet, me and my teammate looked at each other in confusion as our training bomb showed zero on the timer. 


“I thought we had another 30 minutes?” my teammate Morgan questioned.


“We did. Did the system shut down or something?” I replied. 


Slowly, the metal door opened and our agencies director walked in. Morgan and I were both stammering over our words as we both tried to figure out what was wrong.


“Morgan, Lilith, both of you calm down. It’s not an accident, I shut down the bomb on purpose”


“What! Why?” We exclaimed, both thinking we did something wrong. The director didnt answer, instead swapping the bomb with another one.


Walking towards the door the director sighed and said “You know girls, it’s really disappointing that neither of you can tell the difference between your disgusting director and his twin brother.” With that the man in front of us pulled out a badge showing the symbol of our enemy


“No, it can’t be true” Morgan cried as I stood there shocked at what I had heard


“Oh, but sweetheart, it is”


“What the fuck did you do with my dad!” Morgan shouted.


The “director” stepped back a bit, shocked, before returning to normal and exclaiming “well that makes this all the more exciting, see that bomb there is the real deal, no fakes, just plain real and you two have an hour to disable it or you, this building, and your little daddy will all get blasted to hell” he pressed the button to start the timer and then started closing the door. 


Morgan and I lunged forward but it was too late and the door had already closed, Morgan banged her fist on the door and yelled so loudly that I had too cover my ears for fear that they mightburst.


“Morgan, if we don’t disable this bomb neither of us nor anyone in this building will make it out alive, as much as I hate to say this you need to pull yourself together so we can get to work, we’ve trained for years for this very moment and we can’t let all of that go to waste”


Choking back her sobs Morgan stuttered “yeah let-let’s to-to wor-work” she pulled herself together eyes puffy and still leaking tears onto her jumpsuit.


I analyzed the bomb as best I could and found three separate puzzles and three key holes on it that most likely would shut down the bomb if all the puzzles were completed and the keys were inserted. Looking over at Morgan I nodded and we began on the first puzzle.


Looking over the puzzle it was a memory game where you had to press all the buttons in a certain order to complete it, luckily for us, memory was Morgan’s specialty.


“Move over, allow me” she stated slightly shoving me over too the side. As I watched her work the puzzle just kept getting harder and harder, at one point Morgan messed up and ten minutes were removed from the timer.


 00:43 left.


Morgan kept working on the memory puzzle and finally completed it, causing the hatch to open, revealing a shiny red key


“Yes! One step closer to saving us and my dad” Morgan squealed.


00:31 left


“Good job, now let’s finish the rest of the puzzles” I exclaimed. We rotated the bomb to look over the next puzzle. Observing the puzzle it was a coordinate game, solve the coordinates and punch them into the keypad.


“Yes! My favorite” I jumped forward to look over the puzzle while pulling out a pencil and paper naming how many stars each constellation had and two colors saying either positive or negative, the paper read:



North star: 1

Gemini: 2

Orion: 3

Pegasus: 4

Red: negative

Blue: positive 


I looked back at the bomb and read out the words and numbers above the keypad “329437236, pegasus gemini orion, red red blue” on the bottom of the paper I wrote out:


Pegasus=3294 Gemini=37 Orion=236

Red=-3294 red=-37 blue=236

-3294 -37 236

Morgan was peering over my shoulder as I typed in the numbers and the second hatch opened revealing a blue key.


“Got it!” I jumped and hugged Morgan “just one more puzzle and we’re free to go”


00:24 left


We looked over at the next puzzle, and both of us turned to each other wide eyed as we realized neither of us knew how to complete this one as it hadn’t been in any of our training.


“Fuck fuck fuck, we only have 23 minutes how are we gonna complete this” Morgan started freaking out


“Uh shit, um lets check the manual maybe it’s in there” I said trying to calm her down. We opened the manual and flipped through the pages until we landed on a page towards the back labeled:


Fire boy and water girl


We read through the basics and learned that it’s a two player game where fire boy and water girl had to reach the top of the tower without dying by going in the opposite elements or the poison pools.


“Ok how about I play water girl and you play fire boy” Morgan suggested 


“That sounds fine” I agreed and we both placed our hands on the controls and started playing.


Morgan died first when she fell in the lava.


00:15 left


I died second after I ran into the poison pool.


00:10 left


Finally we managed to reach the top of the tower and the hatched opened to a purple key, with all three keys we placed each one in its respective spot, red on the left, blue on the right, purple in the middle. Morgan held the red and I held the blue, we both placed our other hand on the purple key and turned all of them at once.


00:03 left


The final hatch on the top opened with a prompt and a microphone.


“What? I thought we were done?” Morgan asked.


“I guess not, let’s see. ‘Say your deepest secrets and the bomb shall stop’ seems pretty straightforward” I stated


“Shit um well you can go first” she said weirdly nervous.


“Uh ok?” I leaned towards the mic and took a quick breath before saying “I was the one who was forced to execute my mother after she sold agency data”


Morgan looked at me somberly and then turned towards the mic before quickly turning back


00:02 left


“I can’t do it ivory” Morgan cried


“Morgan you have too, we will all die if you don’t”


00:01 left


“Fine, for you and for my dad” she turned back towards the mic and reluctantly “the directors not my dad, his twin brother is” the bomb timer shut off.


I stepped back slightly shocked but then immediately went and held Morgan close too me for a few seconds before we turned around to see the door open on its own. I grabbed Morgan’s hand and said “let go find your dad, the director, together”


She tightened her grip and nodded before we both headed out the door unknowing of what would happen next.


The end