“Maybe you should go untrigger it,” said Harrington.
“Can’t be that simple,” Ruth mused.
“Here we go again,” said Harrington. It was the first time I’d ever heard him criticise Ruth.
“No . . . look . . . the birds are moving in patterns,” Ruth insisted. “Otherwise they’d be smashing into each other, right?”
Yolanda nodded. “But figuring out the pattern doesn’t help us. We can get past the birds if we’re super careful, but we can’t put the box together.”
“We have to stop the birds.” I watched them swinging for a moment, mesmerised.
“They’re working on some kind of motors,” said Yolanda.
I continued to observe the paths and movements of the birds. “The birds get a bit wobbly when they pass over the puzzle pieces. Kind of like they’re being held in place for a moment. Like . . . they’re a giant version of those novelty paperweights that move about on magnets.” I looked around at the other three. “If it’s magnets, could there be magnets in the pieces of the box?”
Yolanda shot me a worried look. “I can’t claim to be an expert on magnets, but I was a physics major before my life went off the rails. And if there’s magnets in the puzzle pieces, we’re in for a world of trouble. Because magnets that strong would be neodymium. They’re crazy strong. Get in between two of those puzzle pieces, and you’ll be crushed to death.”
Ruth sucked her mouth in, making a popping sound. “Yeah, looks like magnets. Well, they didn’t make this one easy.”
I pressed the back of my head into the wall. “It’s damned dangerous.”
Harrington blew out a hard breath. “What choice do we have but to get out there and just do it? We’ve got to dodge those killer beaks and move those bad boys.”
“The birds seem to be losing a bit of height in their arcs,” said Yolanda. “The motors started them off and the magnets are keeping them going. But air resistance will win out, and the birds will eventually stop.”
“How long do we have?” demanded Harrington.
Yolanda shook her head. “I said I was no expert on this, and I don’t know how it’s set up. And we don’t know how they’re triggered. Once we go in, we could set the whole cycle off again.”
“Should we try to work out the trigger?” I asked quickly.
“We could do that,” said Yolanda. “But I don’t know if it would help us. The birds could stay in motion for a long time just on this one trigger, with only a small loss of energy.”
I spun around to check the clock, shocked to realise that I’d forgotten to look at it since I’d walked into the room.
Eight minutes left.
Ruth threw up her hands. “You lot are complicating things. I like things simple. If the puzzle pieces are magnets, why don’t we just try flipping ‘em? North and south poles and all that. If the magnets are repelling the magnets in the birds now, then maybe we can flip the magnets and make the birds stay tight.”
“I want to hug you right now.” Yolanda flashed a row of white teeth at Ruth.
“Touch me and die.” Ruth glared at her.
“You women all have to hug me if I head in there first.” Harrington creased the right side of his face in a wink.
“Like fun we will,” Ruth called out after him as he strode to the first puzzle piece.
Ducking low, Harrington made a grab for the piece and turned it over. Yelping at the swift return of the bird, he sprinted back to the wall.
The bird didn’t stop immediately, but its arc was interrupted. It moved chaotically for a few seconds before settling on top of the puzzle piece.
The four of us cheered out loud.
“Okay, people,” said Ruth with the voice of a sergeant major. “Let’s work out which pieces of the puzzle go on the bottom and which go on the top.”
Staying hard against the walls, we moved quickly around the room, studying the pieces.
“Look!” I called. “See the pattern? The pieces with the pattern would go on top, right? Wouldn’t see them on the bottom.”
Ruth nodded. “You got it.”
“And the pieces with the parallel lines could go around the sides, horizontally.” Yolanda had both her hands out in front of her, moving them as though rotating an invisible piece of wood.
“Right, people,” instructed Ruth. “I want these two pieces of wood first. We’ll go in and stop all the birds. Then bring me the pieces I asked for. That way, we cut down on the number of birds in flight until the end. Capisce?”