A JSE Fanfic
Part Four: The Next Clues
[This is part of a small ten-part series I wrote for Halloween 2019. There's a new villain in town, and Jackieboy is on his list. Now with JJ's help, Jackie goes about solving the next set of puzzles.]
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If anyone was walking through the streets of the historic section of the city at 1:40am, they would’ve been surprised to see the two men sitting on the curb, staring intently at the blue screen of a laptop. Jackie had the computer carefully balanced on his knees, JJ leaning on his shoulder as he watched. “And add to the list of things this guy knows about me,” Jackie muttered. “My freaking email! Yaaaay.”

'That is a bit disturbing,' JJ signed, frowning. 'How could he know all this?'

“Look, as someone who’s hacked before, I can tell you that very little on the Internet is entirely secure.” Jackie opened his email, immediately noticing a message from an email address: 4d6164@gmail.com. “But still, this guy must have some crazy skills. I’m starting to think he supplemented any cyber stalking with regular stalking. You know, following us around. Maybe placing spy cameras in hidden locations.” He clicked on the email he’d received, opening it to see it was completely blank, except for an attached zip folder called “Set 2.”

'That seems a tad excessive, doesn’t it?' JJ asked, but he stopped, reconsidering. 'Well, actually, this entire idea is excessive. If he wanted to go after you, he didn’t need to invent this entire twisted game.'

“That’s true. But some people just like to fuck with others.” Jackie downloaded the zip file, then found it in the laptop’s Downloads folder and unzipped it. “What worries me is that I’ve never even heard of this guy…”

The “Set 2″ zip folder had just one file inside: 2.png. Frowning, Jackie clicked on it. What popped up was a black-and-white image of a staff, with wings sprouting from the top, two snakes twining around its length. “Oh! This, this! That’s a…uh..” Jackie bit his nails a bit, thinking.

JJ looked at him, then finger-spelled a word. 'C-A-D-U-C-E-U-S.'

“Yes! Caduceus!” Jackie shook his head. “Man, my brain is all over tonight. More than usual.” He took a deep breath. “You know what this is? It’s a medical symbol. Henrik has a sweater with a caduceus on it, Jack got him it for his birthday one year.” Guess they now knew who the second set of puzzles was for.

'Focus, Jackie,' JJ implored. 'But is this all there is? I don’t understand what this could be pointing to, other than…who’s next.'

“Well, with your puzzle I had to play around with editing an audio file.” Jackie closed the image and opened the laptop’s photo editor. “Might as well start doing the same for this picture. I mean, obviously not audio editing, but you know.”

The very first thing Jackie did when opening up the editor was click on the brightness slider and slide it all the way to the brightest setting. And words immediately appeared in the previously black area of the caduceus’s staff. Jackie leaned closer, tilting his head to the side. “ ‘Follow the skulls’…” he read out loud. His brows furrowed. “Well that means nothing.”

JJ waved his hand in front of Jackie’s face to get his attention, then signed, 'Perhaps it relates to some clues in the city around us?'

“Maybe. But I don’t have any idea what that could be referring to.” Jackie tapped his fingers against the laptop’s edge. After a moment, he started playing around with more sliders on the editing program. After turning up the contrast, something else appeared. “Whoa, hey, what are these?”

A string of figures were now wrapping around the edges of the picture. Small words in the top left corner said “Start here.”

'It must be some kind of code, right?' JJ asked. 'They’re numbers, but they go too high to be a simple alphabet substitution.'

“Yeah, but there are letters too.” Jackie began reading the string out loud. “68 74 74 70 73 3a 2f 2f…I have no idea what this is. But I guess that’s what Google is for.” He opened up the website, plugging ‘cipher decoder’ into the search bar. An overwhelming amount of results popped up. He blinked. “I…I don’t even know where to start.”

'Trial and error?' JJ suggested.

Jackie’s face fell, a gray cloud falling over his expression. His eyes darted to the small clock in the corner of the laptop.

'Perhaps there is one that could identify the cipher when you type it in?' JJ suggested. 'But other than that, we don’t really have much of an option.'

“…you’re right. You’re right.” Jackie took a deep breath. And another. “Okay, let’s start.”

It took five minutes to find a decoder that gave them something recognizable after plugging in the code from the picture. It turned out to be a url for a YouTube video, which Jackie immediately typed into a new tab.

“Oh! Uh, there’s earbuds.” Jackie handed one of the buds to JJ. “We can listen together. I know we could just take out the earbuds and listen with the laptop speakers, but just in case…” Just in case of what? He wasn’t sure. But JJ took the earbud anyway, awkwardly putting it in.

Jackie didn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t…this. He physically leaned backwards at the sound of the intro: “Yo, what’s up guys? I’m Chase, and welcome to Bro Average!” He had to pause it for a moment, just to bask in the confusion. “I-I thought…” he said slowly. “Was…was I wrong about who…?”

JJ looked confused as well. 'Perhaps it’s both of them?'

“But there are four sets? I-I don’t…?” Jackie shook his head. “Nevermind, it’ll make sense later, once we actually get to them. Because we’re going to. In time.” Jackie laughed. JJ gave him a concerned look that he waved away. “I-I’m fine, let’s just…see if there are any clues here.“ He pressed play.

It looked like any other video by Chase. In fact, Jackie thought he’d seen it before. It followed the same format at first. The music, the shots of Chase hanging out, the attempts at trickshots that always failed at first. Chase once said he liked to include the fails so the viewers would know he’s no better at these than anyone else, and that anyone could do the tricks if they tried. But then—

'What was that?' JJ signed quickly.

“I don’t know.” Jackie paused the video. He used the arrow keys to go back, but when that failed to pick anything up, he resorted to using the comma and period keys on the keyboard to go frame by frame. Until he finally managed to capture the image that had popped up for a split second: A hollow red circle, divided into fourths, with a red skull in the center. There were also a few strange dots and dashes along the bottom.

'Am I correct in assuming Chase didn’t originally have those in his video?' JJ asked. 'But then, how did that get there? Is it possible to put images in a video on the web?'

“No, but…” Jackie tapped the screen. “This is on a different channel.” Indeed, instead of Chase’s BroAverage channel at the bottom of the video, the channel name was a string of numbers with a few letters that looked similar to the encoded url that had been hidden in the .png of the caduceus. “That means the video could’ve been downloaded, then edited and reuploaded. There could be more of these…actually, there probably are. The image said ‘follow the skulls,’ I bet it meant ones in here.” He frowned. “What are these dashes? Morse code?”

JJ nodded in agreement.

“Well, great, guess we’re going to have to write these down and find another decoder—”

'Jackie.' JJ raised an eyebrow. 'I know Morse code.'

“You do?” Jackie blinked. “I didn’t know that. Since when?”

'Since…' JJ paused. '1923, I believe.'

“Oh. Okay. Well, that saves us some time. Here, I’ll just open up Notepad and write down the code on this image, then we can see if there are more images sneaked into the video.”

There were. Five more times, the image of the red skull appeared, each time accompanied by more Morse code. Jackie copied the code into a page on Notepad, and once he was sure there was nothing else hidden in the video, he passed the laptop to JJ. JJ glared at the code, then slowly began the process of translating. Jackie looked around the dark city while he worked, legs bouncing. The city was always empty at night, but it seemed even quieter than normal. He didn’t like it.

What if the gamemaster was somewhere in the darkness right now? He said he’d be watching. How? What if he was following them? Or were there cameras, invisible eyes, dangling in the shadows? Making sure they didn’t break the rules and get help? What time was it? How much was left? Though he didn’t want to, Jackie began wondering what would happen if he failed. He knew the basics, of course, he’d never see the others again. But what would happen to them? Would it end with something as simple as a gunshot? Or would it last longer? Maybe they wouldn’t be killed at all, maybe they’d vanish into a worse fate—

JJ tapped Jackie’s arm, and Jackie yelped. JJ sharply withdrew his hand, then asked, 'Are you alright?'

“Y-yeah, I-I just was, um…thinking. You startled me. Are you done?”

JJ clearly didn’t think Jackie was actually alright, but he nodded. 'I’ve finished. I believe it’s an address.'

“Here, lemme see.” Jackie scooted closer. It was indeed a simple address. “Spiralnest Street…that’s in the north part of the city. It…it’s dangerous there.”

'Well, we don’t have much of a choice, do we?' JJ signed, sighing.

“No. No, we don’t. We’re going to have to be quick, and hope we don’t attract any attention.” Jackie closed his eyes, preparing himself, then opened them again. “We can’t take public transportation, nothing runs this late at night. Neither of us can drive, and even if we could, we don’t have a car. How fast can you run?”

JJ bit his lip. 'Not as fast as I would like.'

Jackie looked at the time on the laptop. He watched the numbers change from 1:56 to 1:57. His stomach twisted sharply. “Okay. Okay. We have time. We’ll be quick.” He shut the laptop, putting it back in the box. “Let’s go.”

He stood up, and JJ did as well. He grabbed his hand and the two of them started running.

And somewhere else in the city, a man sitting at a desk leaned back in his chair, staring at a screen on a bank of monitors. Three hours left. They were still ahead of schedule, but now only slightly.

He reached over and switched cameras, checking first on a room with two people behind a sheet of plexiglass, then another with a single man lying unconscious on the floor. Good. Nothing had changed.

He stood up. By his calculations, it would take them anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour and a half to reach their destination. Enough time to drive over there and set up the final puzzle of Set 2. He chuckled.

He couldn’t wait for this part. It was a classic, one of his favorites. Though he had a feeling Jackieboy and his friends wouldn’t appreciate it as much.

A JSE Fanfic
Part Three: The Studio
[This is part of a small ten-part series I wrote for Halloween 2019. There's a new villain in town, and Jackieboy is on his list. Jackie arrives at the location specified by the puzzles, and finds one of his friends.]
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Jackie was out of breath when he finally arrived at the studio, a stitch digging into his side. He stumbled to a stop, leaning against the nearest wall to recover. Just because he COULD run for a long time didn’t mean he felt good afterward. He should’ve taken this at a jogging pace, but time was of the essence.

After allowing himself a long break, Jackie straightened, clasping the box with the laptop to his chest and looking around. Of course, it was dark. Because the city didn’t pay to install lights in an area that was only valued for its history. So Jackie had no idea if film studios looked anything like he thought they did. But the large buildings did almost resemble warehouses, and that was something he understood. Now. Which building to search first? Jackie figured he might as well start with the nearest one.

And then when he opened the door to the nearest one and started to walk into the darkness, he ran into a plastic wrap strung across the doorway like it was a prank video. He scowled, then took a step back to read the note taped to the plastic. "Not this one!" it read in typed letters. "Next one over –>"

Welp. At least this guy had a sense of humor. Though Jackie suspected that sense of humor was more warped than it first appeared.

The next studio had its lights on, blinding Jackie to the point where he had to blink for a moment to get used to it. The studio was nothing but a wide, empty room. Vintage lights and other old-fashioned filming equipment were scattered about, probably for tours. What clearly wasn’t for tours were the bright red arrows painted on the floor, twisting around the equipment and leading down a hallway. Words were also painted on the floor, clearly written with use of a stencil. THIS WAY JACKIEBOY, the floor read. Jackie scowled, but he had to admit he appreciated the help.

He followed the arrows cautiously, almost afraid of what he’d find at the end of the trail. He’d been deliberately avoiding thinking about the aim of the game, but now it was twisting his stomach in knots. What state would the others be in when he found them? What if they were hurt? If this sick gamemaster did anything to them Jackie was going to track him down and fucking beat the shit out of him.

The arrows stopped at a discreet door down the hall, indistinguishable from all the doors around it. Jackie had no idea what these rooms were originally used for but it really didn’t matter. There was another typed note taped to the door: "I’d tell you to knock, but it’s not like he’d be able to tell you he was inside."

“Oh, you absolute bastard,” Jackie muttered furiously. “That’s not something you fucking joke—why am I talking to myself?!” He grabbed the door handle and tried twisting it open, only for it to stop suddenly. Jackie swore his heart stopped too. He jiggled it, but it wouldn’t turn further. “Jameson? JJ?” Jackie raised his voice, yelling through the door. “If you’re inside, I’m here! It’s fine!” He stopped trying to turn the handle and instead kicked the spot on the door right under it. He growled and set the box with the laptop on the ground. Then he grabbed the handle again and turned it at the exact moment he shoved his shoulder against the door, throwing all his weight against it.

The door immediately gave way, and Jackie fell flat on his face. Scrambling to his feet, Jackie turned his head on a pivot as he looked around the small room. It was stuffed with racks of costumes and accessories, a clash of colors in the yellow electric light. Hidden among the costumes was a chair, and tied to the chair was a familiar face.

“Jameson!” Jackie crossed the room in just a few bounds, skidding to a halt next to the chair. Jameson immediately tensed. There was a black cloth blindfold tied around his eyes, and though he seemed to recognize Jackie’s voice, he was also wary. “Hang on, hang on, I-I’m getting you out of here,” Jackie said as soothingly as possible, pulling at the blindfold. The knot was tight, so he pulled the cloth itself off until it hung around Jameson’s neck.

Jameson squeezed his eyes shut immediately. “Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay.” Jackie took a moment to place his hands on Jameson’s shoulders, an anchor to the rest of the world. “We’re gonna get out of here.” How long had he been here already? It had to be a few hours at least, right? Fuck.

After a few moments, Jameson opened his eyes, blinking and squinting at the sudden light. With his hands bound behind his back, he couldn’t speak, but Jackie could read questions in his eyes. What’s happening? Where are we? What about the others? “Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything,” Jackie said, a tired smile on his face. “Or, as much as I know.”

Jackie rushed out the explanation while wrestling with the ropes around Jameson’s wrists and ankles. By the time he finished untying him, Jameson was basically caught up. “And so now there’s…uh, four and a half hours left to find everyone else,” Jackie finished.

JJ was taking this surprisingly well. Or at least, if he was freaking out, he was doing so internally. 'Alright, I believe I understand,' he signed. 'But what do we do next?'

“I, uh, don’t know,” Jackie admitted. He pulled JJ to his feet, bracing himself as JJ stumbled a bit, falling against him.

There was a sudden high-pitched whining sound, followed by a crackling. “Maybe you should check your email.” It was the gamemaster’s voice, sounding tinny and small.

Jackie jumped, looking around. “Intercom,” he muttered, then raised his voice. “You’re not going to give us any sort of explanation, are you?”

“You know for what it’s worth, you’re going faster than I thought you would be. You might even have time to spare.”

“Gee, thanks.”

JJ frowned. 'I don’t suppose there’s a reward for being ahead of the curve, is there?'

For a moment, the intercom crackled. “Okay, I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve been trying to study ASL and BSL but it’s going pretty slow and I have no idea what you just said.”

JJ sighed, then made a gesture that most definitely was not sign language.

“Wow, okay, no need for that.”

“You know I actually think there is a need for it, you kidnapping freak,” Jackie remarked. He held up a hand. JJ high-fived it.

More intercom crackling. “Well anyway, I hope you didn’t break that laptop when you dropped it, because you’re going to need it. Check your email. You’re going to love this next set. You ever play Until Dawn? It’s a good game, a little cheesy, but fun.”

Jackie blinked. “Okay…?” He had played it, but not in a while. So if this puzzle set was composed of references to that game, he wasn’t going to get it without research.

“Oh, and I’ll remind you that the timer is still counting down. It’s currently 1:38am. That gives you four hours and thirty-two minutes to solve the other three sets. Good luck.” And there was a click, and the intercom shut off.

Jackie exhaled slowly. He fought the urge to sit down in the room’s single chair. Keep going. Find the other three. He could do this.

There was a hand on his shoulder. Jackie started, then looked over at JJ, who gave him an encouraging smile, accompanied by a mustache waggle. Jackie laughed. “Alright. You and me, buddy. We got to get to the others. Now come on. I don’t want to spend any more time in this place than I have to.”

A JSE Fanfic
Part Two: The First Clues
[This is part of a small ten-part series I wrote for Halloween 2019. There's a new villain in town, and Jackieboy is on his list. Jackie starts to solve the puzzles left behind by this mysterious villain.]
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The city buses stopped running at eleven each night, which meant when Jackie arrived at a bus stop at 12:32am he wasn’t even going to entertain the idea of taking a ride back to his apartment. Besides, even if they did run this late, he doubted any bus driver would give a ride to the city vigilante, which he was easily identifiable as while wearing this suit.

He sat down on the bench, using the light from the streetlights to see while he tore open the cardboard box. The laptop inside was clunkier than the most recent models, and it didn’t have a brand label on it anywhere. When he pried it open, there was a yellow sticky note on the screen, with a message made from letters cut out from a newspaper: "The password is your birthday, year and all. 6 digits."

“Oh great. Psycho knows my birthday, got a real stalker here,” Jackie muttered to himself as he powered up the computer. A hysterical smile twisted his face. “What else does he know? My shoe size? My underwear color?” He let loose a small giggle as he typed his birthday into the slot for the password: 100790.

PASSWORD INCORRECT flashed on the screen. Jackie blinked, then reentered the series of numbers, slower. The same message popped up. Jackie leaned back against the bench. Were there more numbers? No, the note said six. Then it hit him. He typed in 071090. The lock screen disappeared, the desktop loading up. Jackie breathed a sigh of relief. Stupid backwards American dates. Stupid American creep getting him to play this twisted game.

Speaking of that guy, he said the first set of puzzles would be in the files. Jackie went to pull off his glove so he could use the mousepad on the laptop before remembering he already took it off. He shrugged, then gave the screen’s desktop a once-over. Mostly empty, except for a few shortcuts on the desktop, including one for Google Chrome. The background picture was a blank red screen that kind of hurt Jackie’s eyes to look at. The only thing pinned to the taskbar was the file explorer, so Jackie clicked on that.

After exploring the files, he found there was a single zip folder in the Documents named “Set 1.” After unzipping it, he found it contained two files: 1.txt and 1.ogg.

Wait, wasn’t .ogg an audio file? Did he dare risk playing whatever message this…gamemaster left for him while in a public place? Sure, it was midnight and the streets were empty as far as he could see, but you never knew…and then Jackie noticed the pair of white earbuds sitting in the box next to the laptop. He closed his eyes and sighed, then plugged the earbuds in and put them on.

The laptop came with an audio player installed, which he clicked on, uploading the 1.ogg file. He pressed play and—

“Jesus fuck!” Jackie yanked out the earbuds, instinctively leaning back against the wave of distorted sound that had blasted his ears. He hurried to press pause on the sound. “What the shhhhhit was that?” He hissed.

He decided to come back to that later, opening the 1.txt file with notepad. Inside was empty, except for a url: 6368616f737468656f7279.com. Jackie frowned, then opened the Internet browser, copy-pasting the url into the search bar.

The webpage that popped up was blank white except for a single line of text: "Enter Password" with a space to type something.

“Are you fucking—?!” Jackie set the laptop on the bench and stood up, walking a few circles around the bench and pulling on his fingers while he tried to calm down. “Okay. Okay, focus. Think, Jackie. Get into that zone. What could the password be? Where could I find it?”

After a few minutes of walking, something occurred to him. That distorted audio. First, what was the point of it? Why include it if it wasn’t important to the puzzle? And second, he’d heard a lot of distorted audio before. This didn’t sound like random white noise. It sounded like something that had been a normal audio file, but had been tampered with.

So, stands to reason that there would be a way to un-tamper it. And maybe…there would be a message once the puzzle was unscrambled. Jackie took a deep breath, then sat back down and grabbed the laptop again.

The computer’s audio player had settings to edit the file with. After speeding up the sound, playing with the pitch, and reversing the audio, he had it sounding almost recognizable. In fact, it sounded familiar…Jackie pressed the earbuds closer. He knew this song. “What is this?” he muttered. He racked his brains, flapping his wrist to help him think. Come on, he definitely knew it…

“Lone Digger!” He finally shouted. “Yea!” He punched the air. The song was by Caravan Palace, who were absolutely fantastic. Jackie wasn’t usually one for electro swing, but he liked them. He actually recommended them to JJ the other day—

Jackie froze. Oh. JJ.

On the one hand, the gamemaster could’ve chosen the song at random. On the other, if this guy knew who his friends were…how many conversations could he have overheard? What if the song choice meant something?

Jackie checked the time on the laptop clock. 12:41am. He had five hours and nineteen minutes left. That sounded like such a short amount of time. He took a deep breath. The night felt a lot colder than it had even a few moments before.

He’d done his best to clear up the distortion in the song, but there were still some odd random noises. Maybe there was another program to help with that. He scanned the shortcuts on the desktop. A visualizer program? He opened it, then loaded his editted version of the 1.ogg file. There were a few filters he could turn on, and he began messing about with them. When he turned on the spectrogram, he sat up straight. Numbers had suddenly appeared in the visual representation of the sound file. 1031, it read.

Jackie switched back over to the strange website, entering 1031 in the spot for the password. After a few seconds when he waited with baited breath, the page changed from the password screen to a map, along with a sidebar with some text along the left of the screen. He recognized the area the map was showing: a spot in the west side of the city, a historic section. The map had no markers. But the sidebar with text could hold some answers. Three questions were written there.

Jackie took a deep breath, fingers drumming on the bench next to him. This area wasn’t too close, but if he ran, he should get there within thirty minutes. Okay. He was doing good on time. He could do this. He deliberately pushed away the voice in his head reminding him of the stakes of the game, reading through the questions.

1. Q: What is the shortest blade a knife can have and still be brought to a public gathering, as of current city laws?

A: _ inches

2. Q: How many letters are there in the British Sign Language Alphabet?

A: 2_

3. Q: What year was the first film with sound released?

A: 192_

Okay. If Jackie had any doubts about who he was trying to save for the first set, they had now been erased. His stomach was full of worms, but he pushed them down farther and calmly opened another tab on the browser.

He had to Google the city laws on knives, and then open up a converter for metric system to American system, but he found the answer easily enough. He didn’t need Google for the second question; it was technically a trick. If you were talking letters and not signs in general, there were the same number of letters as the spoken and written English alphabet. He did have to look up the last one, though.

(3) inches. 2(6) letters. 192(7).

Jackie examined the map on the screen again. There, an address in the area: 367 Studio Blvd, a street appropriately named as an old film studio was located there. In fact, the studio’s address was 367.

The time was 12:49am.

The clock was tick, tick, ticking.

Jackie slammed the laptop shut. He knew how to get there. He was fast, and he had the stamina to run for a while. He packed the computer and its earbuds back into the cardboard box, then stood up.

“Hang on, Jays. I’m coming,” he whispered. And then he ran.

A JSE Fanfic
Part One: The Game
[This is the first part of a small ten-part series I wrote for Halloween 2019. There's a new villain in town, and Jackieboy is on his list. Jackie finds himself in the middle of a dangerous game, and his four friends are involved as well. In a matter of life or death, Jackie scrambles to keep up with this villain, desperate to protect the ones he cares about.]
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“Wake up Jackieboy. You have a busy night ahead of you.”

Most people, upon waking up to a strange voice calling their name after passing out in their apartment, would be understandably freaked out. Jackie not so much. Of course this was weird and suspicious and definitely not good news, but it was part of his life at this point. Now he just had to wonder who it was this time.

Jackie opened his eyes and saw he was lying on a bed, on top of red blankets. He noticed two things right away: one, he had a killer headache, and two, he was wearing his super suit, which he distinctively did not remember wearing before…before he got here. How did he get here? The last thing he did remember was heating up some leftover pizza after work and chowing down on it while he watched YouTube. It tasted a bit funny, and he did get pretty sleepy pretty quickly after eating it…oh.

He sat up, looking around the strange room. No windows, only one door. It reminded him a bit of a hotel room. He wasn’t sure why, it was something in the simple furniture: couch, long table against the wall, short coffee table, and armchair. None of the sitting furniture looked too comfortable to sit in. The walls were wallpapered red, to match the red and brown furniture. There was a screen mounted on the wall with speakers next to it.

“Ah, there you are. Right on time.” The screen flickered to life, showing static briefly before clearing to a red screen. “I was starting to worry I messed up my calculations for the dosage.”

“Who are you?” Jackie stood up and addressed his demands toward the screen. “Where am I? How did you get inside my apartment?”

“Uh, lockpicking. It’s a useful skill that most people overlook. As for your other questions…” A map of the city popped up on the screen, with a red dot blipping into being in the northeast part of the city. “You are here. And I’m definitely not going to tell you who I am. At least, not right away.”

“Ooookay…” Jackie’s eyes darted towards the room’s door. It was probably locked, but couldn’t hurt to try. He turned and walked towards it.

“Oh you do not want to leave yet.”

Jackie stopped in his tracks. That was…an odd thing to say. Well, it confirmed that this guy—male voice, higher pitch than his own, American accent—had visual on him as well as audio. Jackie turned back to the screen. “Why?”

“Well, I heard you were a fan of games.”

Jackie laughed. “Okay, Jigsaw, you want to play a game?” He folded his arms. “Let’s cut to the chase, why don’t we? What if I don’t play? Are you going to kill me?”

“I guess you’ve been threatened so much that situations like this don’t exactly phase you, then?” The voice sounded…intrigued. And slightly amused. “That makes sense. Anyway, no, I’m not going to kill you. But it’s in your best interest to play along. Or actually, your friends’ best interest.”

Jackie felt his heart stop, then resume, pumping ice through his veins. “…what?” The word was barely audible.

“Oh yeah.” The map on the screen vanished, four pictures replacing it. Jackie turned to stone as he realized who the pictures were of. Chase, Schneep, Marvin, and Jameson. All the pictures had the look of being taken candidly, capturing them as they went about their business in the city, photos from a distance, around corners, and through leaves. “I know where you live, Jackieboy. You think I don’t know who your friends are?”

“What did you do?” It came out as a whisper, so he repeated the words, louder with rage. “What did you do?! If you’ve done anything to them—”

“You won’t be able to do anything about it.”

Jackie growled and kicked the back of the armchair.

The voice laughed. “But don’t worry! They’re perfectly fine. Or, they are right now, at least. I can’t promise they will be later tonight.”

Jackie’s heart was pounding as if he’d just ran 30 meters in a dead sprint. His eyes flicked back and forth between the photos on the screen. His friends. This psycho had his friends. “What…what are you going to do? What do you want from me?”

“Well, it’s very simple.” The pictures on the screen disappeared, replaced by a white screen with bullet points. “First of all.” The bullet points filled in as the voice talked. “I’ll give you a series of puzzles to solve. These puzzles will lead you to locations where your friends are, and tell you which one is there. Second, you have six hours to solve these puzzles and get to all your friends.” A clock popped on screen, showing the time: 12:09am. “If you fail to get to anyone in time, you lose the game and…well, you won’t be seeing them again. And finally, if you get help from anyone, if you go to the police, you forfeit the game. Which is a form of losing. And again, you can say goodbye to anyone you’ve left behind if you lose. Any questions?”

By this point, Jackie had taken off his super suit’s glove so he could chew on his nails. Okay. Seemed simple enough, even if the stakes were high. He could do puzzles. Hopefully. “If—I mean, when I get my friends back, can I ask them for help or do they count for the third rule?”

“Of course. What else are friends for?”

Jackie exhaled, releasing tension he didn’t know he was holding.

“Are you ready to play?”

“I…uh…” Jackie hesitated, then nodded. “How do I start?”

“Look on the table by the wall. Do you see a flat package there?” An arrow appeared on the screen, pointing toward the table. There was indeed a flat cardboard box. “Inside it is a laptop. The first set of puzzles is on there, in the files.”

Jackie glared at the package. He didn’t know if he should trust anything this voice gave to him. But he didn’t think the guy would send the puzzles to his own personal laptop. He walked toward the table and snatched up the package.

“There will be four sets of puzzles,” the voice explained. “Increasing in difficulty, of course. Don’t worry, you can use Google, this is an open-book quiz. Just know I’ll be watching. And hurry up! It is currently ten minutes after midnight. You have until 6:10am to solve all the puzzles.” A timer popped up on screen, reading six hours. “The game starts now. Go!” The timer started ticking down.

Jackie didn’t even reply, just ran towards the door, threw it open, and came out into a run-down hallway, lined with doors with one at the end. He dashed towards the door at the end, pushed through it, and stumbled onto the street. He looked left, right, then ran toward the city center.

Six hours.

The game was on.