Chapter 81: The Second Time Around

Lena, Donica, Zhizhi and I donned our hardhats.

We had more gear this time, which Donica and I unloaded from the back of her Yukon. Bright orange safety vests, to which we clipped on cheap bodycams and lights. Even though we were visible from the street, Donica slapped her light to test it. Its glow illuminated a slurry of snow and gravel.

Those of us without smart glasses slipped headsets on and paired them with our phones so we could talk hands-free.

Lena didn’t need the headset. She had on her Google Glass and her amulet. She got Bernie from the back seat of the Yukon, along with a kind of harness she’d fashioned from an old backpack. I helped her position it over her vest and wiggled Bernie into place on her back.

Erin and Miguel set up three laptops in the Yukon while we donned our gear. We tested the connections. Our camera feeds came through, showing versions of what we saw both in and out of Third Eye.

Miguel shook his head. “Every time I see the graphics, I’m reminded of how absurd it is. Well, right from the outset, I recognized it had to be something beyond normal.”

“Who else is online?” I asked.

Erin said, “I’ve looped ShakeProtocol and CannibalHalfling in. I’m going to stream a screen capture from one of these computers to them.”

“Four eyes are better than two,” Lena said. “Or I guess eight?”

“Twelve if you count the third ones,” I said.

She chuckled.

I realized I was letting myself stall.

I gave Erin and Miguel a thumbs up and faced the construction site.

No one had come around to prop up the gate or close the door we’d flung open on our way out. A lock on either of those would’ve represented my last excuse to bail on this expedition.

I hated how much I still wanted one.

But that was the point. Confronting that feeling. That fear.

Lena rubbed her hands. “All right, everybody line up.”

“Why?” Donica asked.

“Because we’ve got to do the hero walk!” Lena looked between us. I grinned, but Donica and Zhizhi looked lost. Lena spread her hands. “The four of us stand in line and walk forward in step, then we play it back in slow motion for the video?”

Zhizhi laughed. “I’m not sure that works for a documentary.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m changing the genre,” Lena said. “Your plan was a little too found footage horror.”

Donica had taken a step forward. She slid her foot back into line.

“You thought it was just some dumb shit I was doing for the lulz, didn’t you?” Lena asked.

“That’s my first assumption about everything you do,” Donica said.

Lena cocked her head. “Well?”

Donica stretched her neck. “If it looks too ridiculous in slow motion, we’re not going to use the footage.”

I certainly felt ridiculous, matching my stride with that of the three women. Somehow, though, I figured Third Eye would make the version taken through Erin’s phone look spectacular.

Best of all, I got through the door before I remembered to be afraid.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. A wave of disorientation and nausea? To turn around and realize it had been an hour for Erin and Miguel?

For something to crawl out of the darkness, bigger and more powerful than Bernie and a hell of a lot less friendly?

None of those things happened. We were just standing in an unfinished lobby.

It almost felt disappointing after I’d built the place up so much in my head.

Lena took it in through her smart glasses. “If this is what the place would’ve looked like, I wish they’d finished building it. Once we make a fortune as a combination tutorial and ghost hunter channel, we could’ve moved in here.”

“I think the one across the street has the same design, anyway,” I said.

“Something to look into,” she said.

Speaking of looking into –

All three elevators were closed.

I said, “Shit,” and tried not to heave a sigh of relief. Into my headset, I asked, “Everything normal on your end?”

“No,” Miguel said. “We are still watching the four of you pad around as though you’re terrified of your own shadows.”

“Yeah, well, the elevator closed since we were here before.” Did that explain why we were right to feel nervous, since it meant something inexplicable had happened? Or did it explain why I didn’t feel as nervous as I thought I should, because I couldn’t see into the elevator?

“I want to say this doesn’t make any sense,” Donica said. “But what does, anymore?”

“You’re sure the doors were open last time?” Zhizhi asked.

“Of course.” Donica tapped on her phone and showed a series of photos. The lobby, outside Third Eye, looked the same as it did now. Concrete floors, pressed board walls, a layer of dust and cobwebs, darkness that seemed to creep in on the narrow band of light from her phone.

Except that in the photo, the central set of elevator doors yawned open.

Just seeing a picture of them made me shudder. I fought down an impulse to look away, swallowed bile, and made myself pay special attention to what I could see of the mirrored metal surface inside the elevator.

Just weird shadows.

“You’re right,” Zhizhi said, “this doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe the place has power, after all?” Lena asked.

“If it does, it’s running off some kind of on-site generators,” Zhizhi said. “I checked all of the records about it. They never had power hooked up here in the first place, or any utilities, even under the previous ownership. The new ones don’t seem to have done anything with the place.”

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“New ones?” I asked.

“Uh-huh. Couple years ago, part of the consortium that bought this lot folded. Then a new company came in and bought the place up.”

I frowned. “What company?”

Zhizhi shrugged. “Don’t remember. I can check my notes, but it’s kind of a pain when I’m lugging this camera around.”

I touched my headset. “Did you guys catch all that?”

“We did,” Erin said. “I’m looking it up now.”

“By the way, Cameron,” Miguel said, “you don’t have to touch your ear like an agent in a movie.”

“Wrong.” Lena was pushing on the temples of her smart glasses. “If we don’t do this, how are our future viewers going to know when we’re talking to you instead of each other?”

“I bow to your cinematic expertise,” Miguel said.

I think Lena meant to toss her hair, but the hardhat spoiled the effect. I supposed it would work through Third Eye. “Damn skippy!”

I leaned over and kissed the side of her head. I whispered, “Thanks.”

She squirmed. “You don’t have to make a big deal out of it. I wasn’t just backing you, I’m serious about making the video look good.”

“I meant, thanks for keeping our spirits up.”

She stopped squirming. She smiled up at me. Not a huge nervous grin, just a hint. Happy I’d noticed. “You’re welcome.”

“If you really want to make a good video,” Donica said, “you need to make it less sappy.”

“It depends on what you’re into,” Erin said.

“At least somebody appreciates my genius,” Lena said.

“Mmhm!” Erin paused. “Are you ready to hear about the new owners?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“They’re a commercial real estate company in Colorado Springs,” she said, “which is owned by a holding company in St. Louis, which is owned by a holding company in the Maldives. The first was bought, and the other two seem to have been incorporated, in the last two years.”

“I don’t know enough about the commercial real estate scene here,” I said. “Is that weird?”

“I’d need to do a much more extensive study to figure it out,” she said. “You’re wondering if we can somehow trace it to Third Eye Productions?”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“That would be sweet,” Lena said. “Then we wouldn’t be trespassing at all.”

“Technically, I think we still would be,” Erin said.

Donica nodded.

Lena shrugged. “Yeah, but, we’d have a way better excuse for it.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have to justify ourselves, yeah?” Miguel said. “Still, it would be good to know. We might be able to find out more about these companies on our end.”

“Ooh,” Erin said. “I could try cross-referencing the ownership groups with other sites that have had a lot of Materials found in them!”

“An excellent idea,” Miguel said. “Meanwhile, our intrepid explorers should focus on what’s in front of them.”

I nodded. For once, gestures weren’t even useless through a call. The two of them could see us all through each other’s phones and cameras.

“We need to see if it opens,” I said.

Lena and Zhizhi nodded. Donica drifted toward the back of the party.

Since I’d made the mistake of proposing this plan of action, I didn’t have the same luxury.

Ah well. I had the most HP; that made me the tank by default.

I rolled my shoulders, rubbed my hands, and strode across the lobby. I heard three sets of footsteps behind me. They echoed oddly, and I realized it was because the clacking of boots only came from the real world. Third Eye thought we were walking on carpet.

I stopped a few feet from the elevator doors.

They remained closed. I stretched my hand out and tried to stop it from shaking.

“Don’t you need to narrate?” Lena asked.

“What?” I glanced back at her.

“Not you, Cam,” she said. “Zhizhi.”

“Nope,” Zhizhi said. “Like you said, the vibe is all a little too found footage for my tastes. I’ll wait till I see what happens and dub in something dramatically appropriate after the fact.”

“Smart,” Lena said. “Don’t want to trip any death flags.”

“It’s not a movie, Lena,” Donica snapped.

“But if it was...”

“Then I’d be the last to go, because I’m the blonde,” Donica said. “So why don’t you shut up about it?”

“Is that really true? Miguel, you watch way more horror movies, is the final girl usually –”

“Busy,” he said.

I think they kept talking, but I tuned them out. At least, the sound seemed to come from farther and farther away. I didn’t step toward the elevator, but I felt closer to it, farther from the rest of the team and even the rest of the lobby.

If I stretched my hand out –

“What was that?” Erin asked.

I blinked and shook my head.

I felt Lena’s hands on my arm. “You spaced out for a minute.”

“I don’t know if it was the movie talk or something weird,” I said. “What did you notice, Erin?”

“Your camera feed started behaving oddly.”

“Static, like when Bernie moves?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Just, your feed specifically was dropping frames. I’d say it was lag on your phone, but it happened with your bodycam as well. It might just be signal interference?”

“Or,” I said, “it might be what it looks like if somebody outside is watching one of those discontinuities.”

“Or that,” Erin said.

I exchanged glances with Lena, Donica, and Zhizhi.

“Creepy,” Zhizhi said, “but it doesn’t seem to be harmful. I’m going to need more than some weirdness in your video signal before I back off from a story this interesting.”

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s just more evidence we’re on to something cool,” Lena said.

Donica tried to arrange her face into a smile.

Then, abruptly, she strode past me and jabbed her finger into the up arrow for the elevator.

I tensed, my hand half outstretched to pull her back. Only half, because I didn’t want to reach any closer to the elevator doors.

But the doors remain closed. The light remained dulled. The elevator remained silent.

All four of us backed away.

“Did anything happen with Donica’s feed when she got close?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Erin said.

“I think that means it’s less likely to be interference, right?”

“Yes.”

“And it doesn’t seem to be based on location,” I said. “Whatever’s going on, it’s not just specific places. Either it’s individualized, or it’s moving around. I think the latter’s more likely, because both Donica and I seemed to lose time before.”

“That seems like a logical explanation,” Erin said. “It might be the safest one to operate under for now.”

“You think it’s a creature or something?” Lena asked.

“Like a Time Daimon?” I raised an eyebrow. “That would be pretty sick.”

“Right? Oh man, I hope it is.” Lena rubbed her hands. “Gotta catch ‘em all.”

“So that’s going to be your thing? Daimon master?”

“It would be super cool, wouldn’t it? I don’t know if we’ll get to spec into stuff that way or not, but if we can, hell yes.”

Bernie made a meeping sound.

Lena reached over her shoulder and scratched his head. “Don’t worry, little guy. Even if I recruit a whole bunch of Daimons, you’ll always be my number one.”

I smiled.

It didn’t last.

When no one said anything for a moment, I felt like I had to. “Last time, the elevator opened after we checked the back rooms. The warehouse and the hallways. Whether it’ll open again or not, that’s where we’ll find more Materials.”

“At least we know what to look for, in terms of the camera feeds,” Erin said. “I’ll ask Joon Woo if he knows of any software that can track dropped frames more precisely, but I don’t know if we can get it up and running tonight.”

“Something to look into for next time,” I said. Not just to convince myself we’d be able to have a next time.

I looked up and down the lobby. Donica and I had only explored two of the doorways off it. There were another dozen, all into little shops or restaurants that, I had to assume, had back doors leading to the warehouse area.

“Do we try retracing our steps?” I asked.

“I didn’t record everything from the first trip,” Donica said. “Without a clear point of comparison, we’d just have to trust our memories. I don’t.”

I nodded. “Plus this way, if we see any footprints in the dust, we know they aren’t ours.”

“In retrospect, do you suppose it was one of the devs? The source of the other footprints I saw?”

“It would explain where the inspection report came from,” I said.

I wished we had a map. First, because it would help us navigate, and second, because if anything didn’t fit, we’d have evidence that space as well as time was being warped. Both Donica and Zhizhi had tried to find architectural plans for the building, though; neither had turned anything up.

Supposedly, our support team was mapping the place as we went.

For now, any doorway was as good as another.

I took a deep breath and approached the first one I saw.