by Ben Farthing
"Wonderful. Like I said, I'm going outside to check my phone."
"No. We go upstairs now." Micah's tone chilled him. Not a suggestion, not even an order, just a statement of how things were.
"If Eddie's left already, he'll have texted me."
Dr. Terry raised his index finger. "I'd like to see this open area beneath us. There'll be answers down there. For one, what's supporting this tower at all?"
Micah stood up. "We go upstairs."
"After I check my phone." Chris stepped towards the outer doors.
"If your son is still inside, then he's enjoying a rare privilege. We shouldn't interrupt." Micah motioned to Roberts.
The giant crossed the space between him and Chris in less than a second. Chris only had time to flinch before Roberts' bulk bore blocked out the bright courtyard. It was like a mountain about to tackle him.
Chris exhaled. Instead of leveling him, Roberts only grabbed his arm.
"Shit, I wasn't running," Chris said, and then realized. "Why would I run? What the hell is going on?"
Micah was already walking to the elevator.
Dr. Terry's wide eyes looked from Chris to Micah. Frozen.
"We're going upstairs," Roberts said. He squeezed Chris's arm, lightly, but enough to show Chris had no choice. He whispered. "Your boy will be fine. This is a good place."
Chris had never heard something so wrong.
All morning, he'd had the nagging feeling that the tower was his. But that wasn't quite it.
Finally, the feeling solidified, and Chris realized he'd made a mistake. The tower didn't belong to him. He belonged to the tower.
"Gather up your equipment," Micah said, her back to them. "We'll need it."
25
Eddie and Cam took the stairs.
In Treasure Hunter X, the elevators sometimes broke down, and then the security guards found you. The stairs were safer.
"My thighs are killing me." Cam leaned against the door to the sixth floor. "You sure we can't use the elevators?"
"Positive." He pointed to the big number six painted on the door. "The first hiding spot is in an office. In a safe behind a picture."
"Give me a second." Cam slid to the floor. "We should have brought some water bottles."
When they'd first entered the tower, they tried the basement first. But if Cam's buried money was down there, it was covered by a cement floor.
Plus it was dark, and they only had the flashlights on their cellphones.
"That was creepy as hell down there," Cam said as she caught her breath in the stairwell. "You really didn't hear anything?"
"No." Eddie had never been so freaked out by a basement before. But that's just because it was dark and huge. He hadn't heard anything.
"Are you lying right now?" Cam shook her head. "You can't tell me you didn't hear that. Someone was walking around down there. Dragging their foot. We should have talked to them. They probably have my hundred-eighty dollars I buried."
"You ran away."
Cam had gasped, then pushed Eddie back to the stairs, and practically dragged him up by his wrist. He'd been happy to follow.
Cam laughed. "Yeah, I freaked the fuck out. Probably a janitor or somebody. I guarantee you security is looking for us now."
"Security would have caught us by now. We're the only ones in here." He felt small in the tower's empty insides. If this was an office building, there should be people going to work. But maybe nobody expected it to get built so fast.
Eddie noticed Cam looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "But I'll be more helpful. I'll keep extra good lookout so security doesn't find us."
Cam rubbed his hair. "Hey, you either see them or you don't. Quit worrying so much about helping." Cam climbed back to her feet. "Let's go check this first hiding spot."
She opened the door onto the sixth floor.
Eddie's stomach filled with butterflies. The yucky kind.
It wasn't an office with desks and little short walls. It was the same open space as the first floor, but six floors up. A walkway around the edges, and a bridge across the middle. A warm air current blew up past his face.
This was all wrong.
He couldn't check the safe behind the picture in the third office from the door, because there weren't any offices.
He should have known. It wouldn't be exactly the same as Treasure Hunter X. That was stupid. This was a real building.
"You forget to breath?" Cam patted his cheek. "Your face is turning white."
"It's not what I thought." Eddie squeezed his eyes shut. This was turning into another cluster. Now Cam would leave and he'd have to search the building by himself.
"Breathe deep, little man. You got your facts mixed up, that's all. Could still be behind a picture. Look over there." She pointed across the bridge. A framed painting hung on the wall. She stepped onto the walkway and looked at the near wall. "Over here, too."
Eddie followed her onto the walkway. The air current blew stronger, like fingers through his hair. He avoided looking over the edge. He didn't like heights.
Cam was already pulling down the first picture. It was a black and white photograph of the new building from outside. "How fast did they snap this photo? This place is weird as shit."
The wall behind the picture was blank.
"Let's try the others," said Cam. "And if there's nothing there, maybe you heard wrong. Could be the sixteenth floor, God help my legs. Plus there's other hiding spots you know about, right?"
Eddie nodded. He hadn't heard wrong, because it wasn't the man in the driveway who'd shared the hiding spots. He knew the hiding spots from Treasure Hunter X. But same difference. He went to the next picture and peeked behind it. Nothing.
"See? It's all good. You're helpful." Cam quickly grabbed his chin and made him look her in the eye. "But you don't have to be."
He did, though. So he would be.
They continued their search.
26
The elevator ride lasted longer than made sense.
Chris stood in front of the closed doors. His refilled backpack weighed heavy on his shoulders. He cradled his prybar and a roll of blueprints in his arms.
He felt Roberts breathing down on the top of his head. Close enough to grab him in case he decided to run once the doors opened.
Micah stood at Roberts' other side, and Dr. Terry made himself small in the back corner of the elevator.
Chris wanted to get out of this elevator, find Eddie, and get out of this building.
But first, he wanted to know what the hell Micah and Roberts were up to.
"Where are we going?" he demanded.
"Up," Roberts said.
"What's upstairs?"
"Hopefully, evidence revealing the purpose of this tower," Micah said.
"It's an office building," Chris said. "Commercial space. Cubicles, water coolers, and slowly drained hopes and dreams."
Roberts said, "Can't be. Those sorts of buildings already exist. This is something new."
"Why do you think that?" Chris asked. "Because of how it was constructed?"
Micah cut off that thread of conversation. "I'm altering the terms of the contract. How it was constructed no longer matters. Now I want to know why. What's this building do?"
"First of all, I met your contract already. Secondly, I'm here to find my son and get him back outside."
Roberts leaned against Chris. The man must have weighed half a ton. "This is today's job. Better if you accept it. And like I told you, this is a good place. Your son is safe."
Chris's back went stiff. Roberts believed that nonsense. Could they not feel how wrong this building was? "You know more about this building than you're sharing."
"But not yet enough," Micah said.
The elevator slowed, a bell dinged, and the doors slid open.
27
Chris would have sprinted for the stairs, but Roberts had a firm grip on his shoulder. Chris had to get away from him.
But the room was m
oving.
The lobby immediately outside the elevator was still. Dull tile floors and a drop-ceiling, like the lobby on the ground floor.
A narrow hallway hugged the building's outside wall, probably connecting to the next elevator lobby.
But in front of them, through glass doors, was the central floor.
In a way, Chris had been right: this was commercial office space. Through the glass, a wide open floor of writing desks. It reminded Chris of reporters' bullpens in old movies. To one side, a maze of cubicles. To the other, a wall of private offices, solid wood doors and frosted windows.
Everything moved.
Dr. Terry cursed and exhaled a raspy moan. Chris thought he should share his terror, but he couldn't wrap his mind around what he was seeing.
The desk closest to him was blue painted steel. Large enough to hold a lamp and typewriter. Its surface swirled, like oil atop still water. Chris watched one swirl reach the edge of the desktop, then instead of disappearing like it would do if it were an effect of the light, it turned ninety degrees to continue down the desk's leg. When it reached the carpeted floor, it shifted color to match the gray carpet fibers, and it joined the ocean of swirling movement on the floor.
That swirl was one of thousands on the desk, all sliding and stretching against each other, covering the desk in its entirety. The desk was one of a hundred in the disorienting bullpen.
Chris walked forward, but stopped short of opening a glass door.
Roberts let him go. "I never woulda thought..."
It wasn't just the desk. Every surface in the open room was swirling movement.
The whole thing felt welcoming, like an active forest inviting hikers to focus on a million tiny movements and forget their outside problems. In fact, tall wooden filing cabinets against the walls, green vine patterns in the wallpaper, and low-hanging, vine-like light fixtures all furthered the illusion of a forest.
Last spring, Chris and Eddie had driven out to the Shenandoah Mountains. Sherri had stayed home, putting in extra work on the weekend. They'd picked a trail, not expecting the "difficult" rating to live up to its name. But while Chris's thighs ached, and while he worried about Eddie's sharp breaths which puffed out the boy's rosy cheeks, he'd been happy. The canopy of pines and oaks, the thick undergrowth, the enveloping jagged hills and gullies--it all felt like a protective blanket. He could pull the woods over his head and protect himself from the monsters back home: poverty and failure.
The thirty-first floor of the new skyscraper recreated that feeling.
Chris took another step towards the glass doors separating him from the bullpen.
The artificial forest tried to calm him, but it wasn't enough.
Hiking Shenandoah with his son had been a healthy respite from stress at home, on a weekend, after a busy week spent applying for jobs. If he let this office relax him, he'd be fleeing a problem that needed immediate attention.
Two problems, actually: getting away from Roberts, and then finding Eddie.
Roberts touched the handle of the glass door. He watched the room intently.
Chris looked over his shoulder. Three elevator doors behind him, one open. No doors to stairwells. He looked down the narrow hallways on either side of the lobby. No sign of stairs, but they had to be somewhere.
Micah, who stood next to a hunched-over Dr. Terry by the open elevator door, noticed Chris looking around. She stepped in front of the elevator. "Roberts?"
The big man grunted.
"Step aside so Chris and Dr. Terry can investigate the room."
A plan sprung to life. Chris did not want to go inside the shifting room. But he could see straight across it. There was another set of glass doors on the opposite side. Another lobby. An escape route.
But he couldn't act excited and give away his plan. "Why us? Why aren't you going?"
"Because we've hired Dr. Terry for his architectural expertise."
Roberts finally looked away from the glass. "And you're still after that open contract."
"I've completed it." Chris readied the misdirect. "I've given you evidence about how it was built. If you want me to keep investigating for information about why, we need another contract."
"I can offer a bonus atop the current contract. How's another fifty-thousand sound?"
Chris didn't expect her to agree that easily. But the important part was that she believe he was satisfied with the money. "Record yourself agreeing to that. Then text it to me. And make it a hundred thousand."
Roberts said, "You can't negotiate. What's your leverage?"
Chris didn't say, "leaving," because then Roberts would try to stop him.
"It's fine," Micah said. She held her phone up like she was taking a selfie, and said, "I agree to add a bonus payment of a hundred thousand dollars, on the condition that Chris Haberman finds the purpose of this building."
"Or finds evidence that leads to finding the purpose," Chris added.
Micah repeated that, then ended the video. She sent the recording to Chris via bluetooth. He made a scene verifying that the recording came through.
Chris tucked the blueprints between his back and his backpack. "We'll let you know what we find. Dr. Terry, you coming?"
The old professor tugged at his mustache. "I'm afraid I have other responsibilities at the university to tend to today."
Roberts sighed. He picked up Dr. Terry around the shoulders and carried him to the glass.
Chris opened the door, then Roberts set the petrified Dr. Terry inside. Chris entered behind him.
The door slammed shut behind them.
28
Inside the swirling room, the relaxing effect was instant.
The urgency Chris felt dripped away. He made himself hang onto his stress over Eddie. While this building tried to relax him, it also had his son.
Dr. Terry even leaned on the closest desk to catch his breath. "That ogre," he muttered, before slowly exhaling.
Chris looked at his feet. The shifting surface patterns on the carpet made his shoes look like still boats in rough water.
The more he thought about it, taking time to relax wouldn't be running from his problems. Eddie would be fine. A little relaxation would be good the boy.
And Chris's other issues were mostly his own damaged ego, from years of failure. Job interviewers picked up on that. Eddie would pick up on it. Chris's fear of not giving Eddie a stable home would make their home feel less stable. So calming his mind was in itself a solution.
Chris purposely ground his teeth. He wasn't ready to calm down yet. The room no longer felt artificial; it felt as natural as his hike through Shenandoah. But he needed to get away from Micah and Roberts, find Eddie, and get home. And all that meant staying alert and on edge. "Here's what we're going to do."
Dr. Terry looked up. The swirling surfaces around him made his profile a still silhouette. He sniffed indignantly, then he relaxed. "Yes, you've always been keen on mundane logistics. Let's hear it."
"Cut the attitude. I could leave you here."
The professor's wide eyes peered back into the lobby. Under the hum of fluorescent lights, Micah and Roberts watched them. "They won't let us leave. We should call the police." He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "But this has to be some kind of misunderstanding. That's Micah Rayner! She's been on the cover of Time Magazine."
"So I'll leave you here, then?"
"No," Dr. Terry said quickly. "What's your plan?"
"They need to see us investigating. So we investigate." Chris opened the drawers of the first desk. Empty.
Dr. Terry walked into the nearest cubicle. "This is your plan? Do what they want?"
"Work your way across the room. To the doors on the far side."
Chris looked up at the low chandeliers. The chains they hung from had thin metal leaves. He wasn't even sure what "purpose" an office building could have. Contain offices. Be a comfortable space. Relax its occupants.
Maybe there'd be something in the offices, behin
d the solid wood doors and frosted glass.
A shadow moved behind the glass.
Chris's mind went to Leon, already up here trying to find answers before Chris could. Micah's ace in the hole to avoid paying Chris. He walked over to open the office door.
Chris's steps felt lighter. If Leon was okay, then maybe the building wasn't dangerous. Eddie was still safe.
The figure behind the glass moved again. Lurched.
Chris stopped breathing. The swirling surfaces surrounded him, smothering.
Something was in that office. The same thing in subbasement three, and in the stairwell right after Leon disappeared.
He backed away.
The shadow on the glass moved. Up, over, down. Towards the door.
Chris got behind a desk.
The office door creaked open. Soft light inside.
The room swirled in time with Chris's pounding heart.
A moment passed. Another.
The open door was a threat. Any moment, the foreign thing would lurch into view.
It didn't.
Chris crept back to the next desk. "Dr. Terry," he hissed.
After there was no response, Chris chanced a quick glance over his shoulder, then back to the open office door.
In the nearest cubicle, Dr. Terry sat in a chair, eyes closed, hands folded over his stomach.
Chris hurried across the room to him. He smacked his shoulder. "Wake up."
"I'm awake. Simply enjoying this chair. If I had one in my office, my students would wait months for their grades."
The professor was falling more smoothly into the room's calming effect.
"There's something in here with us." From this angle, Chris saw deeper into the open office. A desk, floor lamp, landscape photo on the wall. Everything but one corner. Enough space for the lurching thing to be waiting. "I think it's dangerous. We should keep moving."
But Dr. Terry only sighed. "I owe you an apology. Several apologies, I think."
"Now's not the time."