Escape Room (audio story)

Escape Room was the third audio story in Aliens Among Us 3.
== Publisher's summary ==
Gwen Cooper, Rhys Williams, and the Colchester-Prices go to try out an escape room. They've heard a lot about them. Especially this one. People keep going into the game and not coming out. But Torchwood will be fine. After all - partners can trust each other. Can't they?
== Plot ==
At Yvonne's suggestion, Ng, Mr Colchester, Rhys and Colin go to the Escape Room for fun. They enter a space age room and hear a voice inviting them to find their salvation before being rendered unconscious by gas.
Rhys awakens in a room with a padlocked door and hears a knocking on the wall. He inserts the number of knocks into the combination padlock and shouts the numbers he can see in his room to the person next-door. Ng and Colin have just completed said puzzle and go looking for Rhys and Mr Colchester. They find a door which leads to a second challenge. Rhys and Mr Colchester get out of their respective rooms and are confronted with blades that they have to avoid to reach the exit.
Ng and Colin solve a puzzle based on the periodic table and continue on to a jungle path. The voice tells them that he is their escape, that "the journey" is about enlightenment and that they would soon be reunited with their husbands. Colin mentions to Ng how she had not brought up Rhys at all, which she attempts to explain as being simply because she was focused.
Rhys and Mr Colchester enter a room full of ladders separated from a second room by soundproof glass. Ng and Colin enter the other room and are able to communicate with them over an intercom, allowing Rhys and Mr Colchester to learn that their partners had been, unwittingly, in control of the blades.
To reach the hatches in the ceiling, Ng and Rhys begin climbing the ladders but find themselves unable to climb higher than the first rung. Ng presses a button which gives Rhys an electric shock but allows him to continue climbing a few more rungs. The couple alternate pressing buttons and begin arguing near the top as Rhys accuses Ng of holding the button down longer than necessary and responds in kind. They shock each other angrily until Rhys gets to the ceiling and Ng apologises. The Colchester-Prices begin their ascent.
With the teams separated again, Ng and Colin are told to find faith by the voice whilst Rhys and Mr Colchester find themselves having to cross a pool of acid into which Rhys accidentally drops Ng's car keys. They discuss the changes in "Gwen's" personality whilst Ng and Colin avoid jets of flame. Colin recognises that the flames can be predicted based on the musical notes that are made.
In a freezing cold room, Mr Colchester gives Rhys his coat as his own had been destroyed. They identify the exit as being fifty feet upwards and reachable by climbing plates of ice in a similar structure as a spiral staircase above a seemingly bottomless pit. Mr Colchester and Rhys independently hear the voice and are told that they must kill the other to continue onwards. They begin their ascent using crampons and a rope gun.
Before escaping the room, Colin is burnt due to Ng confusing him. The voice tells them that Ng is the strong one even though Colin was the one to solve the puzzles.
Mr Colchester nears the top and prepares to tell Rhys what the voice said to him, but Rhys falls screaming into the pit.
Ng and Colin enter a room with a number of levers, again separated from another room by glass, and Colin realises that the purpose of the escape room is indoctrination into a religion. The voice confirms it and tells them that the Old God of the Sorvix is returning and Earth needed to be prepared for them. Mr Colchester arrives in the other room and tells them of Rhys's death, angering Ng.
Doors appear and the voice tells them to trust in the unknown and leave through them. Colin says that they must trust in his gut instinct and take a leap of faith by going through the doors. The others, wary, do not listen and the doors disappear. The voice directs them towards the two levers on each side of the glass; to pull the gold lever is to save the people in their room at the expense of the others, whilst to pull the silver is to kill those in their room and save those in the other.
Mr Colchester decides to pull the silver lever in his room to save Ng and Colin but nothing happens. Ng realises that nobody will get out alive unless they are willing to murder and pulls the gold lever to kill Mr Colchester. He is shot by energy weapons. The doors open and Rhys appears, having survived by using the gimbal in Mr Colchester's jacket pocket, and uses the gun to smash the glass. The four of them escape through the doors.
The Colchester-Prices head home and Ng apologises to Mr Colchester for trying to kill him. He tells her not to forget who sent them there. Ng sends Rhys home whilst she waits for a locksmith to get into her car, but she instead returns to the escape room for some unfinished business.
Escape awakens in his escape room, having been gassed by Ng, this time without any numbers for the combination. Her voice taunts him and asks him about if God was near. He refuses to answer and she leaves him there, unable to escape. He screams for help.
== Cast ==
* Ng - Alexandria Riley
* Mr Colchester - Paul Clayton
* Rhys Williams - Kai Owen
* Colin Colchester-Price - Ramon Tikaram
* Escape Master - Terrence Hardiman
== Worldbuilding ==
* Colin asks Ng if the letter puzzle is Welsh. It is actually based on the periodic table; Sn for tin, Au for gold, Cu for copper, Fe for iron, Ag for silver and Ti for titanium.
* Colin went to an inspirational talk the year before.
* Ng calls Escape "Big Brother".
* Mr Colchester has a gravity gimbal from an alien spaceship which he uses to help carry the shopping. He is unable to use it in the acid room as it is "out of juice".
* Mr Colchester sarcastically calls himself a Hells Angel.
* Colin did eight years of piano lessons.
* Mr Colchester wears a jacket and a cardigan.
* Colin mentions Stockholm syndrome.
* Ng says that Rhys will need stitches for his hand.
* Escape says that he belongs to the True Faith.
== Notes ==
* While entering the escape room, Ng hums a tune that, while atypical when imagining extraterrestrial life, sounds very similar to the Doctor Who Theme.
== Continuity ==
* Colin tells Escape that he already has a set of beliefs. (AUDIO: Changes Everything, A Kill to a View)
* Mr Colchester uses alien technology for his own personal use. (TV: Everything Changes)
* Rhys once again mentions how "Gwen" has changed since Jack returned. (AUDIO: Orr, Love Rat, etc.)
* Colin mentions Allah. (AUDIO: A Kill to a View)
* Rhys says that he and Gwen always get out alive. (AUDIO: We Always Get Out Alive)
Category:Aliens Among Us 3 audio stories
Category:Stories set in Cardiff
Category:Stories set in the 2010s