Shiller reached out and shook the cage, then frowned. The cage was unexpectedly light, looked like it was made of aluminum alloy or something like that; in any case, it definitely wasn't iron or steel.
"I get it," Shiller said.
"What did you get this time, Professor?" Bruce looked at him in some confusion. "Did you Spirit Communication into another version of yourself again?"
"You've started shutting your brain off again, Bruce." Shiller took a step back, looked at Bruce, and said, "I'm not saying it. You reason it out yourself."
Bruce sighed and said, "The reason I queued up with you was exactly so I wouldn't have to use my brain, Professor."
"And I have zero interest in watching you not use your brain. I've seen plenty of that over the years already. Hurry up and deduce."
Bruce was the type of lazy donkey that has to poop and pee once it's at the millstone; he dawdled for half a day before finally starting to study the mechanism. But there actually wasn't much to study. The style of this escape room was minimalist with a unique solution. The latter might be debatable, but the former was certain, so there weren't many clues to analyze.
Bruce looked up at the disc above. That was the only thing in the room worth examining, but it was too high and a bit dark, so he couldn't see the details on it.
Bruce tried climbing to the top of the cage, but because the cage itself was too light, it was very unstable and hard to climb. Even with Shiller holding the cage for him, he still had to put in some effort to get to the top.
But even once he'd climbed up, there was still a certain distance to the disc. The iron chain had to be four or five meters long, and there were no torches up there. Bruce stood there staring for quite a while and still couldn't see clearly, but he did at least confirm one thing: there did seem to be some patterns on the disc.
"I get it," Bruce said. "We're supposed to push the cage, swing the chain, and use the chain's force in a certain direction to trigger some mechanism above the disc, thereby solving the puzzle."
Bruce had of course also noticed the drain. He said, "To see what the puzzle actually is, we have to wait for the water to rise to a certain height so it lifts us up, then we can see clearly which direction to push. But by then, the water will definitely have risen past the cage, and pushing it will be a bit tricky."
"The switch for the drain should be connected to the cage door." Bruce glanced again at the cage door. There was indeed a small device on it. He said, "But that can't be the only condition. There should also be a pressure-sensing device above the disc; if no one is standing in the cage, the mechanism probably won't trigger."
"Let me think." Bruce said, "We don't actually have to get inside the cage. I'll stand here on it, you close the door, and when the water rises, we both swim up together, take turns coming back down to push the cage, and it's done, right?"
"It does look like that solution would work, which means it definitely won't." Shiller said. "Just assume I've Spirit Communication-ed into the stage designer. He's not likely to leave such an obvious exploit, so there's probably another mechanism on the cage to prevent you from interacting with it some other way."
Bruce rubbed his chin and thought aloud: "There are two differences between standing on top of the cage and standing inside it. You can't stand steadily on top, you have to hold the chain, and there's no board under your feet for support. Could it be that the board itself is special?"
Bruce jumped down and inspected the board at the bottom of the cage. He'd thought it was just a simple wooden plank, but after checking, he found there was a layer of rubber on top of it.
"Electricity!" Bruce said. Then he let out a long sigh. "That's just nasty. What is this, electrofishing now?"
Bruce then understood how this game was meant to be played. Standing on top of the cage was a no-go: first, there was no insulating board under your feet; second, your hands were grabbing the chain—of course you'd get shocked.
Then Bruce started thinking up another cheese strat: have no one enter the cage; from below, reach through the bars and grab the edge of the insulating board, pull the cage down to apply pressure, then close the door and trick the mechanism into thinking someone's inside. That way neither of them would have to go in.
But he later realized that wouldn't work. The cage was just a bit too close to the ground, and from that distance he couldn't exert force properly. So Bruce looked at Shiller with a trace of hope and said, "Professor, your Strength…"
"Has already been nerfed, but I can still buff myself a bit…"
"No, no, no, better not." Bruce waved his hands repeatedly. He said, "I think we really ought to be rule-abiding players, don't you?"
"Even if we can't use that trick, it's not like we're completely out of options," Shiller said.
"What option?"
"The Exhaustion Method," Shiller replied, then gave an Explanation: "We can go into the cage first to activate the mechanism, and before the water rises, push the cage in every possible direction. With some luck, we might hit the right one."
"That's way too unreliable," Bruce said. "Leaving everything else aside, just this: the cage is electrified. Every time we push, both the person in the cage and the one outside get zapped. Trying it over and over like that—how long would it take? We'd be fried before we got it."
"This is where the psychological game comes in," Shiller said. "Do you choose to endure pain to avoid the risk of instant Death?"
Bruce frowned and thought it over. He realized the game's underlying logic worked like this: after the mechanism is triggered, you can still push the cage before the water rises, but since you don't know the puzzle yet, you can only use the Exhaustion Method. The range of angles you can push is actually limited, so pure brute-force trial and error really might get you there. But anyone pushing the cage—whether inside or outside—will get shocked for doing it.
Then, once the water rises, especially after it passes the cage and reaches a high level, you can swim up to see what's on the disc. Maybe the disc is just the answer itself, telling you which direction to push, and you simply go back down and push that way.
But even if the water rises pretty fast, by the time it reaches that height, the people below will already have been half-drowned for quite a while. Pushing the cage at that point might not be in time. Also, the water will be electrified then too, so both of them will still be getting shocked together.
So in this case, the Exhaustion Method actually looks better. You're gonna get zapped sooner or later anyway—push later, you get shocked later; push earlier, you get shocked earlier. Might as well finish it early.
But in practice, this is where your mental endurance gets tested. Sometimes you know perfectly well that it's better to rip off the band-aid, that letting things drag on will only make them more dangerous and painful, but actually facing the pain right in front of you is still really hard.
Especially because it's not just facing your own pain; you have to watch the other person get electrocuted too. Some people don't care if they suffer themselves, but the moment it drags someone else down with them, they really can't bring themselves to do it. Very likely they'll keep stalling and stalling, and eventually go back to using the water-solution approach, and the mortality rate will shoot way up.
"The core idea of this room is: it exploits your feelings, yet demands you be heartless. Your feelings for the other person give you the courage to face pain head-on, but those same feelings make it impossible for you to rationally choose the option that maximizes benefit, and may even drag an otherwise successful action into a swamp of failure."
"Sounds like something Joker would do," Bruce sighed. "To be precise, something a master of Psychology would do."
"All right," Shiller said. "There's another way."
Bruce looked at him, and Shiller simply handed him the iron rod. "Don't forget we've still got props. You hang outside the cage holding this, stick your feet through the gaps and step on the insulated plate. That should work too."
Bruce froze for a second. He pictured the posture in his head and realized it really could work. The key was the iron chain attached to the rod—there was some length to it. Even if you wrapped it around the bars, there'd still be a bit left over.
So you wrap the chain around the middle part of the bars, grab the iron rod at the end, stretch your feet through the gaps and step on the insulated plate. The bars, the chain and the body form a triangle, so you're hanging outside the cage, but still stable.
But holding the rod would still get you shocked. That's no different from standing on top of the cage. Bruce quickly realized what to do—use his hair.
Dry hair is basically an insulator, and he had semi-long hair, plenty to work with. The rod was much thinner than the chain above; he could wrap some hair around it as insulation, though it'd cost him some hair.
As soon as Bruce laid out his idea, Shiller sighed helplessly and said, "Have you considered flipping it around?"
"What?"
"Wedge the rod-end inside the bars, then hook the ring on the other side with your fingers. That way you won't need more than a few strands of hair," Shiller said.
Bruce suddenly understood. He really hadn't thought of it at first, but now that he did, it made perfect sense. Hooking the ring with your fingers only needed a tiny insulated area—a few strands of hair were enough.
He tried it and found it totally doable. He adjusted his posture so no part of his body touched the cage, only his feet on the insulated plate, and he was very stable. And this way, Shiller could push him to push the cage, without ever touching the cage himself, so he wouldn't get shocked either.
"The designer did leave some leeway," Shiller said. "If it were me, I'd have made the cage completely closed. No one would get to game the system."
"Oh my god, I'm a master of gaming the system!" Harley yelled. But looking over, there was only Pamela standing in the room; Harley seemed to have disappeared.
In reality, she was sprawled out, hanging under the cage. Her legs stretched through the gaps into the inside, and her arms went through other gaps. Her four limbs were basically four clamps that locked her torso directly under the bottom of the cage.
Like this, she didn't have to go into the cage at all. Just dangling underneath, she could still add weight to the cage.
"That means you're the only one getting shocked, Little Pa," Harley said with some regret.
Pamela still seemed stunned by her flexibility. Honestly, they had made it through this whole gauntlet mostly on Harley's acrobatics. Once they got out, the two of them would have to treat the Harley Quinns to a big meal.
But soon she recovered and said, "I don't need to get shocked either. I can just kick the edge of the insulated plate."
"Huh?" Harley didn't get it for a second. "But if we're both inside the cage…"
"Then that doesn't work. Once we're in the cage we can only stand. When people are standing, their center of gravity is the least stable. If you apply force unevenly, only kicking the bottom, the person inside will definitely fall and slam into the bars, and that means getting shocked."
"No wonder the cage is designed like this," Harley said. "If you want to push the cage steadily, the one doing the pushing has to get shocked. If you want the person outside not to get shocked, the one inside is probably going to get fried. Is this also part of the trust-versus-betrayal game design?"
"Most likely. If two people who don't get along end up here, the one who goes into the cage will be very passive. Because all the person outside has to do is kick a couple of times at random and you'll get zapped numb. So no one will want to go into the cage."
"Then I'm guessing the next co-op mechanism will probably punish whoever arrives later," Harley said. "Because people with bad blood might keep second-guessing each other at this stage and refuse to clear it, and the later stages are their punishment."
"If people with that bad a relationship can make it this far, that's impressive in itself," Pamela said, shaking her head. "I feel like aside from Batman and Joker, no one could pull it off."
"If it were Joker, he'd probably be begging Batman to electrocute him…"
"Oh, this brilliant lady," Joker clutched his chest in the monitoring room, then his expression turned dark as he roared, "That damn Superman! He actually let Batman go into the cage—he doesn't love Batman at all!!!"