Icing on the Cake

"HELLOOO~" bellowed a team member, Bingwen, as the rest of the team poured into the warehouse like a beautifully programmed algorithm; each automatically going to different corners, setting up equipment one after another.

Bingwen caught Hunter looking at him. "Acoustics..." he simply said as he proceeded to open a large box.

At this, Hunter smiled as if reminded of something.

"Oi, Kat!" Milo called out. "Where the hell are our interns?"

"Exam week," Kat replied.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I informed you last week, Milo."

"Oh. I must have forgot."

Meanwhile, Elward nodded at Ying who was standing with Jiro at one end of the building and as if on cue, the three simultaneously released mini-drones that quickly scanned the whole building's interior.

Kat looked at Kairav sitting quietly in the neatly set-up IT corner. He raised his left palm without saying anything as he typed on the keyboard with the other hand.

"....aand, done!" he said after a while, meaning the data from the drones have already been received.

Milo immediately took a seat beside Kairav and began studying the dimensions of the building being shown on the screen.

"We might not be able to fit the whole structure at once..." he said to no one in particular.

"Can't we just load the area we need?" Saki asked her resident archaeologist as she hunkered near him.

"We can't do that." It was Elward who answered. " The weight has to be accurate."

Jake, who is set up beside the IT corner with his own electronic equipment, shifted in his chair to face them. "It's okay. The whole structure was not built on top of each other. Well, it was but each was separated by..."

"...by seismic dampers and separator pillars and girders sitting on different stone layers," Hunter continued. He was looking at the blueprints piled at the table next to them.

"Can you say that in English, Elward?" Saki asked their resident engineer while casting a slightly annoyed look at Hunter.

Elward smiled at this and when Saki's eyebrows arched, he quickly said, " It just means we can do exactly what you asked."

"See? You can say it like that without showing off." Saki said in a cool voice as she faced Kat but Hunter knew who exactly that tirade was for. He sighed but said nothing.

Saki clapped her hands and the team immediately took their customary places and waited for Kairav to project the structure in front of them.

What appeared was a vividly rendered room that almost occupied the whole warehouse. The projections were so realistic, they can almost feel the smooth marble floor. Very prominent in the room is the altar-like construct in the middle. Directly on top is a curious looking ball.

Nondescript pillars line up the sides of the room in 15 feet intervals. They are perfectly smooth like the floor and on each of them is a strange marking but none looks like the other.

The walls are strangely colored in that they also differed in shade as you go inside the room to its far end.

Milo, Kat, Saki and Kazuki "went into" the room. Each were equipped with a device that instantly calculate their location in relation to the projected images so that their view will stay in proper parallax.

"You sure these are accurate?" Milo asked.

"You wrong us, boss!" There is a slight edge to Ying's voice. Jiro elbowed him and he elbowed back.

"We did what we could, boss" Kairav said as he continued looking at his monitor.

The four came back to the "entrance" of the room.

"Collapse," Saki said and the whole projected structure immediately turned into rubble.

"Freeze," she said to Kairav who immediately typed a command on his keyboard.

Milo went to kneel where the altar should have been. It was crushed by the ball that was previously suspended above.

"These are the actual conditions, right? Based on the initial scans?"

"These are neat debris configurations even for a computer generated one," Hunter interrupted and Milo nodded imperceptibly.

"What do you mean?" Saki didn't bother to annoy Hunter this time. Her curiosity got aroused.

"Do you have multiple scenarios?" Hunter asked Kairav directly, ignoring Saki which prompted a brief worried glances from the team.

Saki sighed and impatiently waved a hand. "Answer the strange dude."

Kairav typed briefly before answering, "We narrowed it down to three, sir."

"No need to be polite." Saki smirked and Kat elbowed her this time.

Hunter asked to see the three scenarios. Kairav hesitated, glancing over to Saki's direction. When Saki gave a slight nod of confirmation, he immediately loaded the scenarios one after the other.

After going through the three alternative scenarios, they agreed that there was indeed something weird about the rubble; that it was too clean.

"Rewind then freeze after 3 seconds," Milo said.

They all looked intently at the suspended materials neatly lined up with the farthest areas being lowest to the ground while the ball is already down and crushing the altar.

"Rewind 5 seconds and slow-mo until ball impact then freeze." Kairav did this and everyone watched the ball falling, this time they noticed that it fell much faster than the rest of the debris.

"There is a sequence to this..." The usually quiet Jiro made them all turn to him.

"Look," he said pointing to the rightmost corner. "Top view, Kai," he told his friend, who immediately inputted the command. They watched as the whole scene lifted from the corners to show a bird's eye view.

The pattern looked like a spiral.

"This was a designed collapse." Hunter turned to Saki who, ignoring him, quickly turned to Milo.

"Why?" Saki asked Milo while her back is to the red-faced Hunter.

The man shrugged and glancing over at Hunter before turning his eyes to Kat for help.

Kat shot a warning look at Saki before she spoke. "Let us make our newest member earn his keep."

"I thought I already have," Hunter replied, seeming to have regained his composure.

"The money is icing on the cake, mister." Kat smiled sweetly but her eyes are deadly serious. "Right now, we want the cake".

"Alright." Hunter adjusted his jacket as he slowly walked towards the projection.

The team's attention is raptly focused on the tall imposing figure in front of them. Meanwhile, Saki is reigning in the urge to slap all of them right that minute. She slowly let out her breath and counted slowly.

"The question," Hunter began, winking at Saki who is obviously fuming. "Is not why but 'how'." He proceeded to walk to the front, near the "entrance", then turned to face everyone.

"The why can be answered by the how," he said with a confident smile.

"There you are with your mumbo-jumbo again," Saki weakly swung a verbal slap to the now openly grinning Hunter.

"The ball dropped first, meaning this is the key to this whole scenario." Hunter began as he walked to the far end of the room.

Everyone followed, even the reluctant Saki who remained at the tail of the group.