Everly nodded again, feeling small next to the man’s looming height, but she was somewhat comforted by the fact that he knew who Richard was. At least she was in the right place.
“Well, I’m afraid that probably won’t work out too well for you just yet,” the man said. “The elevator, that is. But not to worry, I know how to fix that.”
“What do you mean?” Everly asked, following the man as he retreated toward the elevator. “What wouldn’t work?”
“Well,” the man said, pulling a small device from one of his pockets and fiddling with it, “there’s a facial recognition software programmed into the elevators. Assuming this is your first visit to the building, you won’t be in the system yet, so the elevator won’t let you move through the building.”
“So, it’s basically a program to keep people from breaking in?”
“Something like that. Now,” the man said as the device began to light up in his hand. “This should do the trick. Say cheese.”
Everly only had time to turn in the general direction of the object before a blinding flash went off.
“Got it,” the man said. He then pulled a short cord from another of the overly large pockets in his uniform and proceeded to push the elevator button. It opened for him, and he stepped inside, placing his foot out to stop the doors from closing behind him. “All we have to do now is attach this to the elevator’s control panel.” Everly watched as he plugged one end of the cord into the device, the other into a slit below the elevator. “We upload you into the facial recognition program, and then you should be good to go.”
Everly saw the man frown slightly. “What?” she asked, trying to see what he was doing.
“It looks like you’ve already been programmed in. Odd. Your gramps must have done it before you got here.” For a moment, the man stared at the paneling inside the elevator. Then, his eyes lifted to Everly’s face, and she saw—or thought she saw—them widen, ever so slightly. Thought she saw his mouth making a soft sound, an oh. But then, she thought she must have imagined that, because he shook his head and grinned up at her from his crouch on the ground. “Well, at any rate, you are now free to use the elevator.”
“Thanks,” Everly said, smiling back at the man as he stood up.
“No problem.” He slipped the device back into his pocket, and then held out his hand. “I’m Jamie, by the way. Jamie Griffith.”
Everly took his hand and shook it. “Thank you, Jamie,” she said.
“Anytime,” he said brightly, stepping back out of the elevator. “It is my job, after all.”
“Wait,” Everly said, putting a hand out to stop the elevator doors from closing. “What is this place, anyway?”
Jamie cocked his head, a strange smile on his boyish face. “Don’t you know?”
“Not really. I was told to come, that’s all.”
“Well, who am I to ruin the mystery, then?” Jamie said, backing away from the elevator. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Tertium.”
Everly frowned at the doors as they closed, then her eyes slid over to the wall of buttons. The building, it seemed, went up one hundred floors, and Richard could have been on any one of them.
There were also two basement floors, she noticed, but it looked like those levels required a key to access, so she just had to hope that he wasn’t down there.
She didn’t have any good options; Richard really could be anywhere. Everly decided to start at the bottom, and hope she’d either stumble into him, or into someone else who could help her navigate the Eschatorologic. And in the meantime, maybe she could try to learn something about this building. So Everly pushed the button for the second floor and held her breath as the elevator began to hum gently, going up.
When the doors slid open again a few moments later, the first thing Everly took in was gray.
Gray walls. Gray floors. Gray doors that lined the single hallway on either side directly across from the elevator, going back, back, back, morphing into an endless expanse of nothing.
Everly stared at the gray hallway and had no idea where to begin. Before she could think too much about all the gray doors and what might lie behind them, one of the doors near her opened, and a man dressed in red stepped out.
He was so different without the tweed, the coat, the hat. Nonetheless, it was definitely him, dressed in identical red scrubs to Jamie.
Richard Dubose. Her grandfather.
The man she was looking for.
It was almost too easy, Everly knew. One hundred (and two) floors, and she found him within five minutes of entering the building? It was almost like he’d known where she’d go, or like he’d known she’d show up today, of all the days.
Everly shook her head, trying to clear it as she waited for Richard to catch sight of her. As he turned toward the elevator, he halted, confusion turning to delight as his face lit up.
“Everly,” he said, walking swiftly toward her. “You’re here!” He stopped in front of her, brows furrowing again. “But how did you get up?”
Everly blinked, trying to clear away the disorientation that had followed her since she entered the building. “There was a man,” she said. “Downstairs. He said his name was Jamie. He programmed the elevator to let me ride in it. But,” she said, thinking back, “Jamie told me that I had already been programmed in. He thought that maybe you had done it.”
Richard’s smile faded slightly. “Right. No, no, I didn’t think to do that earlier. But Jamie is a bright man. He is the primary software engineer in the Eschatorologic. I mentioned to him that I might need him to help me with that very thing at some point today, when you got here. But you’re here early!”
He said that as if she’d agreed to come today, but Everly herself hadn’t been sure until the night before. Her brows drew together as she studied the man in front of her, weighing the merit of all the questions that bubbled beneath the surface.
“Richard—” she started.
“You can call me Grandpa. If you want.”
Everly stared at the man. Was that what she wanted? All her life, she’d dreamed of what it’d be like to have more family. Aunts and uncles, cousins, siblings. Grandparents. And here it was, an offer for something that could almost be seen as a hand reaching out, ushering her into a family she’d never known.
Yet, that voice was still in the back of her head, telling her something was wrong here. Telling her not to trust Dr. Richard Dubose.
“What is this place?” she asked instead, the same question she’d asked Jamie, hoping now for a more straightforward answer.
“Why, it’s a building,” was Richard’s response.
Everly bit her lip in frustration. “Well, yes, but what kind of building? Why did you bring me here?”
