If you can't beat em'...

When I wake up, I realize things aren’t quite right. First, I’m sitting in a chair, and unless I passed out at my desk while watching Nicolas Cage compilations (like last time), I’m not in my bed. Secondly, when I look around, taking in the rows of velvet chairs and darkened windows, I deduce that I am not in my house. Two very smart deductions.

“I’ve never been on a train before,” I say expositionally to myself, getting up and walking down the aisle. Even though I’ve never been on a train before, I know I’m on a train from all the Harry Potter movies and one zombie movie I’ve seen. I get to the back and try the door. It’s locked. I figured as much.

“Well,” I say, planting my hands on my hips and looking around. “Someone really wants to mess with me.”

Just then, there’s a crackling noise above.

“Hello, Dave.” The voice is coming from the speakers. “Welcome to the Death Train. The car you’re in is a rigged death trap. If you don’t solve the puzzles in this car correctly, then the train won’t stop and you’ll crash and die, unless you die from one of the many traps in the car first. If you do solve my puzzles correctly, well…” A forced laugh trying desperately to sound sinister escapes from the speaker. “You’ll move onto stage two.”

“Hm,” I say. I’m not too concerned. This is still better than waking up and having to go to work. That’s what working retail does to a person.

Glancing about, I try to see if there is anything out of the ordinary. From all appearances, it looks like a regular train car—except for the bar to my right. I immediately stride towards it and sit on one its stools.

Ignoring the fancy and flashy bottles of alcohol, I immediately plunge my hand into a glass bowl of chocolates and pop a few into my mouth. I scrunch my face. They taste like six month old Halloween candy. I chew a bit of the chalky stuff before swallowing it.

The speakers flicker to life above me. “Those chocolates are poisoned. You have 15 minutes to solve my puzzles before you die.”

“Hm,” I say, impressively unaffected by this news, tossing the bowl to the side. It thumps harmlessly on the carpet. “As I had planned. You’ve fallen right into my trap.”

There is an awkward pause. Then the speakers click. “How is you eating poisoned chocolate me falling into your trap?”

“Because, it’s what I was expecting. You’ve fallen into the trap of predictability.”

Silence. Then, “Okay. You’re still going to die in 15 minutes though.”

“A necessary gamble,” I say, wiping a bit of sweat from my forehead. Was that the poison working or just the heartburn from those three burgers I ate last night? “But first and foremost, I want to give you some advice: if you’re going to put some poisoned chocolate in your death trap, make sure it actually tastes good, otherwise your victim is just going to spit it out.”

“Why didn’t you spit it out then?”

“Because I have low standards,” I answer promptly. “But I know everyone else’s standards, and they wouldn’t eat this trash.” I get up and wander to the opposite end of the train. There’s some sort of a puzzle here, with magnetic letters stuck to the door arranged in gibberish lines. “Can I have my phone to figure this code out?”

“No.”

“Well then,” I say, shrugging and turning away. “Guess I’ll die.”

“What?!”

“I’m not smart enough to solve a 3rd graders word scramble, much less this code abomination. Without my phone to look up whatever the heck you’ve got in front of me, I’m a goner.” I fold my hands atop my knee and wait for my inevitable demise.

“Aren’t you even going to try?”

“And waste my precious last moments doing homework? I don’t think so.” I crane my head back to look at the bar, weighing whether I should eat any more of that terrible chocolate.

“I worked so hard on this,” the voice mutters.

“Then you should have kidnapped someone who was smart,” I say. “Frankly, your whole setup was a disaster from the get-go. If you really wanted to get me to try to escape your little death trap, you shouldn’t have told me there was a stage two, because my motivation really flew out the window. If I can’t solve your stage one puzzles, it ain’t worth it to try move onto stage two.”

A thoughtful pause hangs in the air. I know whoever is on the other side of that microphone is deeply considering my criticisms. I tap my fingertips against each other, which are starting to go a bit numb.

“You’re right,” the voice finally concedes. “Wow. Do you have other ideas on how I could make this whole death trap thing better?”

I think a bit. “Get better names other than, ‘death train,’ and ‘death trap.’ That’s just lazy writing. Oh, and add a bomb. People go crazy when there’s a bomb involved.”

“Interesting.” The voice says. “Say, Dave, you wouldn’t happen to be interested in an internship, would you?”

I frown. “Does it pay well?”

“Does it matter? I’m offering to save your life if you work for me.”

“Life ain’t worth livin’ if I can’t afford it.”

A long sigh funnels through the speakers. “Fine.”

“Great. I’m sure we’ll hash out all the technicalities. Looking forward to working with you, boss,” I say, getting up and going back to the chocolate.