Everly had moved right in front of him, pulling his hands away from where they’d dug into his head and holding them. “We’ll figure that out when the time comes. You all seem so convinced there’s no way out, no way around what Richard and Jamie have told you, that you’re stuck in here. But I truly believe we can do it. So, when the time comes, we’ll find that way. But first,” she said, tugging gently on Luca’s hands to direct him toward the door, “we go get Caleb back.”
A way out, Luca found himself thinking. He could barely even imagine it.
But she was right. One step at a time. First, they were going to find Caleb.
They were going to save him.
Chapter Forty-Three
When Jamie Griffith entered the building for the first time, the building was not happy.
He came strutting toward the entrance with a straight spine and a broad grin, and the building knew immediately that something was wrong. No one smiled when they walked up those steps, when they pushed through those doors. Not even Richard Dubose, who had been searching for the building, or for something like it, for over half a decade by the time he stumbled upon the crumbling stone steps that led him up to the front doors.
No one smiled when they entered the building, but Jamie Griffith did, and this never sat right with the building.
The building was a well-tuned machine that—
No.
The building was a carefully instilled system that—
No. Again.
The building was, well. The building was.
Always had always would within and without and all that jazz.
The building was, and there were certain facets to what that meant. Jamie Griffith’s goals did not align well with that of the building, though on the surface it might appear as though they did.
What Jamie Griffith sought: Pain. Power. Dominance.
What the building sought: Order. As simple as that. And order could be achieved by much simpler, much less bloody means than Jamie Griffith chose to go about securing his ends.
However.
However, the building understood its residents. Some more than others. One more than all the rest. And it cared, even if no one knew this, or would have believed it. The building cared, and so it knew the strain that was being put on one Dr. Richard Dubose in being the only unenhanced individual present on the premises. Especially at the beginning.
For a time, after people had begun to first arrive at the building, it had seemed as though they might simply continue to show up, all on their own.
This did not prove to be the case.
Or rather, it did, but more and more often the people were finding themselves on the front steps of the building with so little time left. So little energy remaining to offer.
They needed something newer. Fresher. Younger.
This was Richard Dubose’s least favorite component of working for the building, followed very closely by his distaste that came with what he’d realized was the easiest way to harness the energy from the subjects.
The building knew this. Knew it was bad for morale. Knew Richard Dubose would only be game to continue in that fashion for so long before it burned him out.
And the building cared.
Thus entered Jamie Griffith, the third unenhanced person to ever enter the Eschatorologic. One of only four who ever would.
Jamie Griffith sought pain and power and dominance, and he didn’t care in what form that came. He would do anything. Which made him, in his own right, perfect. Even if the building still did not like him.
Nonetheless, he came with his own uses, in and outside of the building. One such use happened to be a knack for finding troublemakers and restoring them to their place.
Pain, power, dominance.
The building did not want Everly Tertium or Luca Reyes to feel pained, overpowered, dominated.
But order had been disturbed within the building, which never happened.
That is to say, order had been disturbed only once before, and that had been . . . an ordeal.
The building was not looking for another ordeal.
And so it was that Jamie Griffith was led toward a gray-clad figure—one with shaggy hair and desperate eyes—who alerted Jamie as to the actions of two other gray-clad figures, who were at that very moment running down a wayward hallway, heading for a locked door into a dark staircase that would lead them down to a nonexistent floor.
The building liked the two gray-clad figures a great deal more than it liked Jamie Griffith. But everyone had a role to play.
Chapter Forty-Four
Together, Everly and Luca made their way through the green-painted halls toward the entrance of the stairwell. Once they reached the door, Luca pulled out his small key ring and fit one of the keys into the lock, opening the door. They descended carefully in the dark, until Everly sensed Luca halt in front of her.
“The door is here,” he said back to her, and she heard him reaching for the knob, jiggling it slightly. “Sorry, no luck—it’s locked.”
Disappointment welled within Everly. Of course, it was locked. Why wouldn’t the deepest level in the Eschatorologic be kept behind a locked door? She didn’t want to accept it—wasn’t ready to believe that their one lead, their one hope, might have ended so quickly in a dead end. Because if not this, then she couldn’t think of any other possibilities, any other ways to find Caleb.
