FLOOR 21: Descent (The Tower Legacy)

by Jason Luthor

  Ugh. The thought puts a knife into my stomach. I don’t need that fact verbalized. “I guess so? I didn’t really think of it like that, but, sure.”

  “I’m just saying that maybe you want to listen to them. These guys that have come up lately? David Marshall and Pygmalion? They’re in the logs. I just thought you might learn something from these records or some shiz. I can forward them to you from my tablet if you want.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I agree, but my frown’s deep like a philosophy book. I look past her to Tommy and Mike, who are both busy chatting away. Guy talk, I guess. I’m just glad they’re not paying attention to what’s going on over here. Dodger’s got her tablet out, and her fingers are in infinite motion for a second as she taps at its face.

  “Got it,” she finally says. “They’re in your inbox.”

  “Thanks. I’ll check them out tonight.”

  She nods and smiles. “Great. I didn’t want to be the only one who knew about those things.”

  “No problem,” I say as I nod to the boys. They nod back and we move over to join them. Still, my stomach feels sick from thinking about these recordings she’s just sent me. I don’t like surprises. As we all group together, there’s something in the back of my mind I’ve been thinking about. I figure now’s as good a time as any to ask. “Hey, so, back when we rescued you, Mike?”

  He looks at me. “Yeah?”

  “Just, I had a question. I wasn’t the only one seeing shadow men and stuff, right?”

  “No, those things looked pretty real to me. I was freaking.”

  Tommy nods. “Yeah, Jacko. I was tripping pretty hard, and it felt like they were everywhere.”

  “Okay, so, everyone saw them. Did anyone hear a scream, though? Like, did anyone else hear something shouting? Or was that just me?”

  Tommy shakes his head. “Nah. Nothing like that. You, Mike?”

  “Nothing,” he agrees. “Why? Did you hear someone screaming?”

  I almost want to laugh.

  Am I really the only one seeing her? Sally?

  “Nope. Must have just been a hallucination.”

  Researcher’s Log

  Private note

  David Marshall recording

  How does a man celebrate a past he is so thoroughly ashamed of?

  Not that I am ashamed of my experiments. No, those are the greatest of my achievements. It is my prior connection, my bond if you will, with Tower Authority that I look back and spit on. Today marks two years now since the Tower director, Edward Pygmalion, requested that I relocate down here into the Deep. I still remember it like it was yesterday, that early morning when I woke up and walked into my living room, only to find him seated there with a pair of his goons at his back. Of course, at the time I thought it meant my end. I thought Reinforcement was the only option for me. If there is anything close to the truth in the Tower, it’s that a man does not come across the director often. He is a trickster. He plays people against each other and rarely feels the need to intervene personally. I could only conclude that I was bound for the worst fate imaginable.

  I was, of course, wrong.

  My research took nearly limitless bounds once freed from the ethical limitations imposed by Tower Authority. Pygmalion was always visionary in that regard. How could he not be, given his depth of knowledge and access to information? However, he must have seen the writing on the wall. He had no place in the great future that awaited humanity. Without the gift of precognition, he could never be one of those that would leave this Tower. That gift was only for the precious few with telepathic mastery over the Creep. Pygmalion knew there was no place for him, or even most of humanity as it currently exists, outside the walls of this place.

  He must have also recognized that a telepath of sufficient power, one with no loyalties to him or Tower Authority, would always be a threat. Down here in the Deep, separated from the director and his legions of Security, I have obtained the trust of those around me. What loyalties would these men have to a government that let them rot without food or water? These men used to be the dregs of the lower levels, and now? Look at them. They are the vanguard of the future, so committed to the cause that they will give their lives, if necessary, for the great purpose of our experiments. Every few weeks, one or two of them willingly enter those test chambers, and I watch them endure the electric currents until they’re in a state of full panic. It pains me, but it makes them ready for the Creep. Most die. A few bond into the lowest forms possible. But one day? One day our prize will sit in my fingertips. and I will grab it and the future along with it. Whichever of our test subjects rises to the occasion and becomes master of his power will owe me a debt and owe nothing to the director. Why would they feel any loyalty to Pygmalion or Authority, people whose prosperity has been built on the backs of the thousands living in squalor on the lower floors?

  That precognitive will be powerful, of that I have no doubt. After all, down here, away from the leash of Authority, I have finally been able to begin my work introducing Sally Cells into test subjects. Of course, it has been an absolute disaster. In almost all our subjects, the cells were so virulent that the hosts died. One of them, though . . . one of them is growing. Our projections say he will be larger and stronger than his brothers, although by how much I cannot tell. The devices we use to control the Creep Beasts should keep this one in check as well, and when he emerges, he will become a weapon of war. Our research suggests that, even upon death, the Sally Cells in his body could begin to infect the surrounding Creep tissue. We’ve already seen hints that the cells have somehow found their way into the surrounding hallways, making the Creep at these levels more violent than it has been in generations. What the long term repercussions of this are, I don’t know. It also makes me wonder whether it will impact the types of hallucinations we see, given the altered nature of Sally Cells. What I do know is that the creatures I will create from this point forward will be strong enough to stand against every member of Security, and the perfect bond of Creep and human tissue will be strong enough to replicate what Sally once did. After all, this bond will have her cells.

  This is why I believe Pygmalion became fearful. He knew my work was a threat to him. That was the reason he started to ask for reports on an increasingly frequent basis and began to hint that it was perhaps time for me to return to the upper levels. My research had grown beyond his ability to control, because our visions of the future did not align. Even if I had been successful, Pygmalion must have realized there would be no way to use it to his advantage while I was in charge of this project. The religious fanatics in Authority are content to wait out the centuries in the Tower for the return of the Builders, and then they call me and my men Cultists. As for Pygmalion? He never conceived of a future he was not a part of. This is why he came to regret sending me into the Deep to continue my research. Because the person who ascends to the height of human evolution will be loyal to me, not him, and certainly not to Authority. I will have saved humanity, and the future generations of hybrids will remember me as their creator.

  And so, in the end, I divorced myself from the director and his lackeys. There was no place for my brilliance or my vision among them, and I was glad to leave. And yet, even as I say this, I find I am in a desperate situation. Pygmalion is many things, but he is not stupid. He is perhaps the most widely learned man in all of humanity, even more well researched than I, and that cannot be underestimated. One day, he will strike at me. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how. He will wait for the moment when he has the most to gain before he launches his assault. But he will come. The director is a cunning man, and he is patient. He never shouts, because he can twist people to his desires with a whisper. He rarely plays the adversary when he can make others fight among themselves to the death. And, no matter if days, weeks, months, or years pass, he will come. He will send his agents of destruction. And I will be ready.

  I must be.

  Recording Thirty-Eight

  It feels weird to actuall
y have downtime again. I mean, we’ve been running around for so long that I forgot what it was like to just kick back. Not that it’s a vacation or anything. Anytime you’re in the Deep, you’re going to be on edge at least some of the time. I guess it’s just that, you know, we’re not chasing anyone anymore. It was almost two months ago when I got made a Scavenger, and the whole time I’ve been in training, I’ve been worrying about Mike. How am I going to save him? Where is he? Is he even alive? Well, yeah. He’s fine. So for, like, the first time in months, my life’s on pause, and I’m not telling myself that we have to hurry and rescue him. That stress is just gone now. Nope, now I’ve got to deal with a whole new problem. The truth is that I never really knew Mike.

  So, we’re just sitting around, eating some of the food I picked up during the Scavenging. We’ve been taking it slow the last few days while we do some recovery from all the damage we soaked up during that fight with David Marshall, who is just a whole other problem I’ve got to think about. We never found him, and we don’t really know if he actually survived or not, but that’s not what’s stressing me at the moment.

  Mike just starts laughing while we sit there. “Were we always this awkward back on the top floors?”

  “I dunno. Probably, I mean, it’s not like I was ever socially well adjusted.”

  “Yeah well, guess I did my fair share of blowing people off. You always kind of knew I didn’t care what people thought of me.”

  “Yeah. It’s what I liked about you,” I confess. “Oh, wait. I guess you don’t care about my opinion.”

  “I’ll take it, Jackie,” he says as he runs his hands through his hair. His fingers sail through like boats on a river. “But for real, what did we spend all our time talking about back up top?”

  “You know, the Creep and stuff. I mean, it’s not like we didn’t chill, but you didn’t really start coming around until I got older. I mean, thank you for that, by the way. For being a gentleman, obviously.”

  “Well, it’d have been weird if I’d been coming around all the time when you were younger. Don’t get me wrong, I could tell you were smart. Just, things were different when you were thirteen. You were more like my little sister or something back then.”

  It’s like a small gut punch, and I roll my head away. “So, what’s the deal now? We’re still kicking it sibling styles?”

  “Nah, Jackie,” he says. I can feel his hand slide to my knee, and my instinctual disdain for physical contact comes surging to my face in a hot flush. Then again, it’s Mike, so the feeling is made twice as bad by the sense that my heart’s going to break out of my chest. “I don’t know. We’re just cool now.”

  There’s a smile on my face that’s impossible to restrain and I hide my eyes behind my fingertips. “Okay, geez, get out of your feels already.”

  I can tell that he can tell that I’m nervous, but somehow, he just makes things feel better when he flashes that smile of his. “Just saying. Don’t know how many times I can say thanks for bailing me out of that situation.”

  “You don’t have to, I mean, it’s not like you haven’t saved me too.”

  “Doesn’t mean you had to come for me.”

  I shrug and stare off at the wall. “I did have to. That’s what Scavengers do. But also . . . I just wanted to, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned recently, sometimes that’s good enough.”

  The words land and we’re just stuck sitting in the silence for a while. I can feel my fingers digging into the skin of the orange in my hands as they peel away the layers. The good stuff’s inside, it’s just always hard to get to. Finally, I’m able to rip the skin off and sink my teeth into it. Mike laughs again as he watches me. “Tasty?”

  “Delicious,” I garble as I slurp away a bite. “Everything’s always so heavy. Sometimes it’s nice to just chill like this.”

  “Yeah, I hear ya. I spent all that time after my first freak-out . . .” His voice trails off along with his eyes. “Guess I’m trying to say that it was hard to get control again.”

  “They’ve already told you, right? I mean, the commanders explained everything they knew about your powers?”

  He taps on his temple. “Just got to keep it under control. As long as I do that, we’re all safe. It’s just, once it started, it was hard as hell to shut it down.”

  “What’s the deal with that, though? Vick made it sound like you were always so cool under pressure. I’m just having a hard time thinking up something that could make you freak.”

  Mike starts to talk for a second before his eyes snap to his side. For a second, his fingers dig into his pocket before he pulls out something I remember. I mean, how could I forget it? It’s my first recorder, the one I chunked down some vent right before I thought I was going to get Reinforced. But he’s got it. I stare at it for a second before my eyes grab at him. “How the hell, Mike?”

  “I found it. One day we were on the lower levels when I heard something rattling down a vent. When I checked it, it was yours.” He holds it out to me. “I figure you want it back, right?”

  I nod as I reach out for it. When I touch it, it’s like lightning. I almost feel a spark when it slides into my palm. “Holy junk,” I whisper. “I didn’t think I’d ever get this back.”

  “Well see, there you go. It was fate or something.”

  “But how did this make you go all nutters?”

  He shakes his head. “You don’t remember the last thing you recorded on that?”

  “When I thought they were going to wipe my brain in Reinforcement . . .”

  “Yeah. It’s not like we’ve been super buds, but I like kicking it with you, Jackie. I just, you know, I couldn’t deal when I heard that last message of yours. Just thought they’d taken you in and given you a brain wipe.”

  “So, this all got started because of me.”

  “The freak-out, sure.”

  I wave him off. “No, like, everything. If you don’t get this recording, you don’t freak. If you don’t freak, your team makes it back up to the upper floors. Then we never have to deal with these Cultists, or you getting chased or Vick getting captured. It’s my major screw up.”

  “Can’t look at it like that, though. Maybe things don’t turn out this way if I don’t find the recorder. Then again, they might have been worse. We might’ve never had a chance to go deeper into the Tower. This might’ve been what we needed to finally get out of here.”

  “It’s just, I’ve got a crippling fear that my destiny’s going to revolve around an endless series of screw ups.”

  “You already rescued me. I don’t think that’s a screw up.”

  “Dammit, Mike,” I say as I look over at him. “Fine. You win this one.”

  “Ah, well, thanks for going easy on me.”

  “So, what now?”

  “Pretty good question. That’s on you. Right, leader? You got everyone together. You went all action hero. Seems like it’s time for you to lead.”

  “Ugh. Do I have to?” I’m still smiling as I start to pick myself up off the floor. “Just don’t call me leader. That kinda sucks.”

  “Alright. Got anything else in mind?”

  “I dunno,” I say as I reach out my hand to help him up. Right when our fingers touch, I smile as I realize what I want him to call me. “Actually, yeah. Call me Jacko.”

  Private log

  Concerning the phenomenon in the tower

  David Marshall recording

  Despite my recent overwhelming joy at the developments we’ve been making in our research, I would be lying if I said there weren’t times when I wonder if I have been in the Deep too long. Our technology may prevent most attacks, but I am not immune to the hallucinogenic effects of the Creep and . . . and I feel a growing sense of dread as the weeks roll by. It’s become even worse lately, and I don’t think my fears are unfounded, but . . . it does become difficult to tell. The presence, everywhere, of the shadow men is distracting. Even when those around me can’t see them, I see them, taunting me from t
he walls and gesturing to me with their fingertips. Their beaming red eyes stare at me from the darkness as I lay awake in bed.

  I don’t understand them. I understand the Creep. It can be quantified, and it can be measured, but why do these Demons haunt me? They are a product of the Creep, but why does it seem that everyone, every human exposed to the hallucinogenic influence of this environment, always has the same dreadful vision? It never changes nor fluctuates. It is always them. The dark ones. They never speak, but they haunt your every step and action. On a daily basis I am aware of being watched.

  The other day, I heard a voice. It wasn’t one of them, I don’t think, but it was a dark voice nonetheless. The words simply asked, “Are you ready for what’s next?” I didn’t know what it meant, but less than a few minutes afterward, the floor was rocked by an explosion. We are now aware of intruders here on Floor 40. Did the voice know they were coming? Is this voice even real, or simply another product of the Creep’s influence on a person’s psyche?

  There are books, records, of people that once lived here on these floors. Rarely, one finds documents recorded in terrorized, shaky handwriting, with references to a ‘messenger in the darkness’, an ‘empty voice,’ and ‘the shadow eyed man.’ These notes always make reference to a dark voice speaking from the shadows. Is this what I’ve heard, this dark speaker? The Messenger in the Darkness? Did he know what was to come?

  This is insane, must be insane. There is no messenger. There are no shadow men. Of course, they are all just phenomenon produced by the Creep. And yet, I walk these halls some days on the verge of sheer terror. Of course, I know this puts my own life at risk even with the help of our technology, and I wrestle to control my own emotions. The worst of it is the feeling that I am being laughed at, taunted by some dread being watching me from the shadows.

  Today as I sat in one of the rooms we use for rest, my research was broken by a sudden hiss and pop of static. Immediately, my eyes went to a small radio that has been long dead, since there are no public radio signals being broadcast these days. And yet, I sat there and listened as a broken, jingling music began to pour from the speaker. I ran to it, and just as a stilted voice began to speak a series of gibberish numbers, I pulled it from its socket. The silence I bought myself was a welcome relief.