ooc: Well its totally up to you want you want to do. However, you are know in the room with the food and out of the maze. This will be a common occurance right around 60 posts in each chapter till this finishes. Think of it as a cool down and discussion time. It's there to feed your characters, after all whats the fun if they dehydrate, but it can also be used to compare notes in a setting where you don't have to worry about death creeping up on your heals.

ic: The strange guy that had been rocking in the corner of one of the rooms finally picked his head up and looked around. It was fairly clear that he wasn't exactly normal. He had the air usuall associated with someone Autistic. He didn't appear to want to talk to any one but he kept whispering something about triangles and generic binomial expansion.

Henry was munching down. He felt like he hadn't eaten in days, and there seemed to be enough food to fill him up just for him. After finishing his meal, he asked. "Anyone got any ideas on what's going on?"

ooc: Is no one going to help the poor kid eat. Oh and he just gave you very big hint.

ic: Out of nowhere a voice boomed through the room, "5 hours till reinsertion." While reasonably normal sounding it was clear upon carefull reflection it had been computer generated. It seems your time here was drawing to a quick conclusion.

Alex tipped his seat back and looked at the kid as he munched on his burrito. "This is all a government conspiracy man, the guys in uniforms the fact this place is filled with rooms each exactly the same as the next, this is all some piece of a war machine, like the lunar landing or JFK's death its all an illusion man. And that kid is the key, look at him he's been broken by this place, broken by the man. He knows more about this place then any of us could,"

Alex picked up another burrito and walked over to him as he finished his own, "Hi, I'm alex, would you like a burrito? It tastes really good, c'mon its really tasty. And if you don't mind me asking... whats your name?" Alex's thoughts had finally become focused, this kid was seemingly autistic, meaning his memory is probably a steel trap of knowledge, it was simply a matter of finding the trigger to open it, and alex had only five hours to find that trigger before he was on his own again. He had to know what the kid knew so he could escape... so that they all could escape. Alex had no intention of being the governments play thing for long.

OOC: Heh, I had been about to take him something, but it seems that you beat me to it, TheBlindMime :)

IC:
His ears pricked by the mention of mathematical matters, and feeling compassion for someone who seemed very dishevilled, John had been about to take something to the guy in the corner. Alex beat him to it though, so he simply followed along instead. Like Alex, he could see that the person was autistic, and so stood back a little, observing and listening but not saying or doing anything for fear of sending him back into his shell by presenting him with too many people at once. He pulled out his notebook. How did triangles and binomial expansions fit into the pattern...?

The kid simply snatched the offered food and ate it in silence. It would seem he was withdrawn at this point. Maybe little later he would be more comfortable with talking. Seeing as he already seemed to have gave you a pretty large hint about the structure of the maze. The voice came back over the loud speaker informing you that you only have 4 hours left.

Alex moved back to the table and began wrapping up some food in napkins, he quickly shoved them into his pockets. "I might get hungry later." A thought occurs to alex, he begins frantically writing things out in ketchup upon the table.

"13 rooms. The last room I was in had 13 doors that were open, they were numbered but out of sequence, there didn't seem to be any order to them. I wish I could remember the numbers." Alex looked back to the kid, "He said something about binomial expansion. The doors appear to be confusing but, there must be a method to the madness. Listen you guys we could spend the rest of our days jumping in room to room at random and end up going insane, or we can take this one step at a time and figure it out. I'm no math major but I'll figure it out on my own if I have to." Alex sighed, normally it would seem as though he was being dramatic, but today, today was different.

dan nodded as he grabbed some food.

"good idea, but how do we figure out which one to take next?"

Alex paused in thought for a moment, he focused long and hard and tried to figure out the clues he had seen along the way. He looked Dan in the eyes and then replied, "I don't know. My entire journey consisted of finding dead people and people who looked confused." Alex paused for a moment. "But I have an idea on how we can start our escape. After our reinsertion everyone must memorize the first set of doors. If we all come back with at least that we might be able to figure out the first step to this puzzle. I mean unless anyone else has a better idea I think thats a really good place to start."

John looked at Alex, having followed his lead and taken some food for the road. "Actually, I have the door numbers that I encountered written down, and I intend to keep copying them...

I don't remember my maths very well, so I don't remember binomial expansion off hand - although I'll try to remember - but what he said about triangles has given me a thought: What if the rooms are connected in a triangular fashion? Something like this..." Taking out his notebook and putting it down on the table for the others to see, he drew fifteen dots. These are the first set of doors - or possibly, the first set of rooms. After that, there were only fourteen doors..." He drew fourteen dots above the fifteen, slightly indented. "And you," looking at Alex "say that after that there were thirteen doors...." Thirteen dots above the fourteen. The diagram now looked something like this:

... . . . . . . . . . . . .
.. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"It seems that the number of rooms is decreasing every time. What if they are arranged in a triangle? Like this:"

...............
.............. .
............. . .
............ . . .
........... . . . .
.......... . . . . .
......... . . . . . .
........ . . . . . . .
....... . . . . . . . .
...... . . . . . . . . .
..... . . . . . . . . . .
.... . . . . . . . . . . .
... . . . . . . . . . . . .
.. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


"Each room has a door to each other room in the next set, identified by the numbers, creating a huge triangle... Now, that would mean that any route that continues to go forwards would take us out... But as we've seen, some rooms are trapped. There must be some way to divine the true path through the maze, to detect traps... and remember, there's nothing to say that there aren't traps that will send us backwards, considering the structure of this maze - after all, by all logic, barring some sort of teleportation technology, the rooms shouldn't be able to be where they are - they seem to be occupying the same space as each other... The key is probably held in the binomial expansion that our new friend mentioned..."