"It's at ninety-nine percent!"
"Keep going!"
"Hang in there! We're almost there!"
Twenty hours passed like that. Everyone was drenched in sweat, some even dehydrated.
Most had stopped to rest several times. Only Alan and Huang Ji had kept pedaling from start to finish.
The Blonde Sickly Woman had slept through the first ten hours. After a good sleep, she woke refreshed and full of energy, so she joined the effort on the bikes.
She spent the next ten hours pedaling without getting off.
As the charge reached ninety-nine percent, even those due for a break stayed on their bikes, hunched over the handlebars and pedaling with everything they had.
This was the final push. They would not stop until they cleared the stage!
"Redeem it! Reduce everyone's sentences!"
Clang!
The prison doors opened. Supporting one another, they went downstairs on shaky legs, soaked to the skin.
They leaned on one another as they walked out, laughing from the bottom of their hearts.
For many of them, it might have been the most fulfilling thing they had ever done.
The ordeal had changed their personalities and their relationships. They had faced hardship together, pulled through it, and become people who could trust one another.
They had barely left the prison, before anyone could explore the paths ahead, when anesthetic gas descended once more.
Already exhausted, they all quickly collapsed.
Men in black came through a side door, handcuffed them, carried them out of the underground prison, and loaded them into vehicles again.
The underground prison held many game arenas, but the games ahead were no longer suited to this group.
The organizers transferred them to the Gobi Desert in New Mexico, where another underground game site awaited.
One hall was ringed by a circular corridor. Rooms occupied its four corners.