It's 3:21 in the am. It's put up or shut up and go home time.
You and your comrades have been running around the Bay Area in this too small vehicle for 17 hours. There is still far to drive, much to think, and no sleep to be had.
The surely sadistic Game Control has left a big fat clue that looks and feels impossible for your fried brains to even begin to solve. You would like nothing more than to take a shower, kiss your lover, and go to sleep. But as a true Gamer you brush those weak thoughts aside like so much dandruff. Instead you reach for an ice-cold WideMouth Mountain Dew(tm) and pound that sucker. It goes down so smooth you get shivers. High fructose corn sugar and caffeine...the nectar of the Gods baby, the sweet sweet nectar.
You are out in the middle of nowhere but nowhere sure is beautiful at this time of night. The stars are out, each trying to outshine the other and there is no one else in sight except for that other team which in your expert estimation consists of a half-dozen doughy wimps. With a twitch of your head, you ask, "Who is that?" One of your mates without even looking up from the clue responds "Someone I could break with one punch." And you all bark out a laugh together.
The combined power of 16 D-cells in the innards of various MagLites illuminates the clue and your faces, drawn taut with a sickening mixture of weariness and excitement. But the Dew kicks in and your neurons start firing, churning, free associating, generating new ideas and silliness. Everyone's a genius and a comedian at this hour.
Thirty minutes have gone by and as many theories have been thrown up against the stubborn ramparts of this clue. The old dogs of frustration and fatigue are nipping, nipping causing you to yelp out creative curses aimed at those pimples of humanity who are running this Game. Something must give and soon. It's just a question of whether the clue will yield up the next location before your very sanity and will to exist expire.
Fifty minutes, an hour, an hour and ten minutes...tick, tick, tick. The floor is littered with uncountable crumpled scribblings of dashed hopes. Your cell phone lies heavy in your hand and its standby light blinks temptingly, seductively at you. "Come on...just a hint...just a quick call...we've been working on this for over an hour now..." These are the whines of the weaker, gutless phone addicts on your team. It starts with one whimper and soon all are whining against you. They must be euthanised for they are the greatest danger to the team. To call for a hint would be to admit defeat in this battle and to admit defeat, well, you might as well go on home and suck on your mother's teat.
Just as all seems darkest, a
pattern emerges in its most brilliant brilliance. One that is so simple
that a collective "Doh!" rings out across the countryside. Everyone grabs a
gulp from the keg of Adrenaline and the clue is solved. Someone busts open a
map. And someone turns the key. And everyone piles in. And the doors slam
shut as the tires squeal and the engine protests this binary driving. To
the next clue Jeeves! Like the phoenix that rises from ashes to live again,
your team drives on, also a bit dirtier but ever more alive...
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