The Gauntlet Assassin

front a few feet. A tiny red light moved along the tunnel ahead of her. A motion-activated camera. The clever bastards didn’t want the viewers to miss this agony. Lara forced herself to stop scowling. She needed fans and thumbs-up voters.

Her hand touched something soft and oily. The thing moved and she suppressed a vocal reaction. A snake. They’d put a fucking snake in the tunnels-likely more than one. Lara paused for a brief moment, hoping it would slither away. It’s harmless, she told herself, crawling forward. They wouldn’t use poisonous snakes. Knowing it was ahead of her somewhere made her move a little slower.

A moment later, the floor began to slope downward. Lara tried to focus on the ease of the descent rather than the feeling that she was crawling down into hell. The tunnel curved to the right, then ten feet later, she came to a fork, barely discernable in the dark. Oh crap! Another maze. Lara chose left again, acting on impulse. In the blackness, there was no logic to apply, no pattern to analyze.

Forearms aching, she pushed back onto her knees and picked up speed. With her head down, she didn’t see the dead end and slammed straight into it, sending a shock of pain down her neck and spine. The bastards! They’d made the event more difficult this year as well as more physically punishing. With no room to turn around, she had no choice but to crawl backward to the fork.

She hadn’t practiced this skill at the National Guard training camp, but it made no difference. She would conquer whatever they threw at her. As she neared what she hoped was the fork, she heard clomping sounds somewhere in the tunnel behind her. Oh no. If Kirsten had passed the fork, then she was in the same branch tunnel and would have to back out too. In that case, her opponent would reach the fork first and take the lead.

Lara pushed herself harder, hoping Kirsten was still in the main tunnel. As she huffed backward, the clomping sound grew closer. A moment later, Lara’s foot came in contact with Kirsten’s head, and the big woman let out a startled sound.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“It’s a dead end,” Lara called out. She hated to assist her competition but she had no choice.

Kirsten backed away without a word. Lara backed up too, keeping pace. A worst-case scenario played out in her mind. What if Kirsten, out front after they made the turn, ran into a snake and froze up or got injured and couldn’t go any farther? Was there more than one correct path to the other side? Or would they both be disqualified for not completing the course?

Behind her, Lara heard Kirsten make the turn and crawl off to the right. She followed and quickly caught up. Forearms and knees aching, Lara cursed herself for going left. If she’d made the correct decision, she would have a healthy lead by now.

Moments later, the crawling body ahead of her stopped. Another fork? Lara’s brain scrambled to sort out her options. If she followed Kirsten to the end, her competitor would finish first, earning big points. Or if Kirsten hit a dead end, they would both have to back out and Lara would be in the lead again. If she took a different tunnel, the outcomes were more divergent. She would either take the lead, get lucky, and win by a good margin-or hit a dead end, while Kirsten finished way ahead of her. Those were only the best-case scenarios. They could each encounter more forks, more doubling back.

A soft pressure on the back of her ankle made Lara cringe. She kicked and sent the snake on its way.

Her opponent began to move, and Lara learned by feel that Kirsten had gone to the right, leaving the left tunnel open to her. Even though she never gambled with money, Lara was a natural-born risk taker. She crawled to the left, preferring to win or lose by a wide margin than to follow Kirsten through the tunnels like a coward, hoping to hit a dead end.

After five minutes, she dropped back to her stomach and belly crawled along the sloping, curving tunnel. Her muscles ached from the strain, the darkness was oppressive, and anxiety started to build. What if she hit another dead end and had to back all the way out? How long had she been in here? It seemed like hours. Lara no longer cared what her expression looked like to the viewers. This was torture and they might as well know it. Lara used her anxiety to get back on her knees and push harder.

Her forearms, knees, and neck screamed with pain. Had the designers realized the tunnels would hurt this much? She’d known from watching the first two Gauntlets that some challenges and one-on-one battles could be painful at times, but she hadn’t expected this.

Finally, a dim light appeared in the tunnel ahead. Yes! The opening looked about thirty feet away. Lara kept her pace, chest heaving with relief. Moments later, she blinked from the brightness of the lights as she stuck her head out of the tunnel. The drop to the floor was only two feet down, so Lara leapt out like a heavy cat, landing on her hands and knees. She grunted from the blow and struggled to her feet.

Her opponent was nowhere in sight. Lara charged for the elevator-style door built into the dividing wall fifteen feet away. It opened as she neared, then suddenly slammed shut just as she reached it. What the hell? Were the viewers punishing her or was this engineered into the design? She looked around for a control mechanism and saw nothing-no hooks, no buttons, no secret panels.

Anxiety mounting, Lara glanced over her shoulder to see if Kirsten was exiting behind her. There was only a single opening on this end. Yes! Kirsten had to have encountered a dead end. Or possibly the other route had joined the main path somewhere and her opponent was already in the third arena. Either way, Lara needed to get through the door and fight her way through one more section of the Challenge.

She tapped the wall around the door, hoping to trigger a response. Nothing. Desperate, she ran back to the wall where she’d crawled out of the tunnel, then turned and charged for the door again. As she hit the same spot on the floor, the pocket door zipped open. Lara dove through, tucking and rolling to minimize the impact. The door slammed shut behind her.

She sat for a moment, taking in the new arena and catching her breath. Kirsten was nowhere to be seen, but the realization gave her little comfort. The arena contained another pit of water. This one was smaller and featured a massive wall across the middle that rose ten feet out of the blackness. Too high to go over, the competitors would have to go through it. Lara’s gut tightened at the thought of swimming through an underwater tunnel. Sadistic! She’d trained in the pool at the Y and even done some ocean swimming, but she was no Navy SEAL.

Pushing to her feet, Lara appreciated her poly-blend bodysuit and water-sport Keens. She hustled to the edge of the fake-concrete pit and dove in. The chill of the water stunned her and she lost her focus for a moment. As she surfaced, a giant wave sent her tumbling back to the edge. The waterline, a foot below the surrounding floor, gave her nothing to cling to. Another wave slammed her into the pit wall. Hell! How was she supposed to cross this turbulence?

Lara heard the door slide open and turned to see Kirsten run through. Damn. She’d lost her lead and suspected the viewers had penalized her for being out front.

Lara pushed off the wall with both feet, swimming with an aggressive overhand crawl. No waves came at her and she made good time getting to the obstruction in the middle. She sucked in a deep breath and dove under water, looking for a tunnel to swim through. The dark water against the dark gray wall made it difficult to see and she had no idea how deep the pit was. Holding her breath, she swam back and forth along the middle of the obstruction, finding no opening. Her lungs started to burn and she felt lightheaded, so she swam hard toward the light above. She burst through the surface and gulped in air. It would take forever to search the entire wall, Lara realized. The discouraging thought affected her body and she felt the first sign of real fatigue.

It couldn’t be that hard, she mentally countered, treading water and trying to revive her spirit. Kirsten splashed through the water behind her, so Lara dove again, heading to the left and deeper this time.

To her surprise, Kirsten followed. Lara felt the big woman’s looming presence in the dark water like a shark coming after her. About ten feet away and another two feet down, Lara spotted the edge of a round shape in the wall. The pass-through tunnel!

Knowing she didn’t have enough air to reach the opening and swim through it, however damn long it was, Lara surfaced again. She swam to the left, aiming to position herself parallel with the opening. Kirsten followed so close, her hands banged into Lara’s feet as they swam.

Lara dove for the underwater tunnel. As she reached the opening, nearly five feet across, long fingers wrapped around her right ankle and pulled her back. Lara kicked free, but Kirsten grabbed her hair. As Kirsten dragged her down, lights suddenly came on underwater.

Kirsten let go and Lara struggled to the surface, lungs burning with the need for oxygen. Her competitor