The Chapters

Chapter Twenty-Three

Familiar, familiar... Have I seen this person before? It's throbbed in my head, making my chest tight. I know him. I know I do, I just can't pull up an image. 

It's only when Zahara lets go off me that I realize that I have to move so I don't get spotted.

Alexien has gotten the elevator doors open somehow, and the other four are already inside. Tirto is fiddling with something inside the small enclosure while Lia and Zahara watch me expectantly.

I look back at the man in the room. He's turned a bit, giving me just the slightest glimpse of his profile. It's familiar, the whole thing is familiar, the light, the posture, the lack of noise. The only thing that's missing is -

And here the amnesia kicks in. I don't know what's missing, just that something is.

"Mica," I hear Alexien hiss at me. "Get in."

Right. I quickly step inside and stand at the front of the group, directly in front of the closing doors. I send one more glance back at the man. He's turned back again, away from me, and suddenly he doesn't look so familiar anymore. Maybe I was imagining it.

The doors close completely, leaving us in darkness. We wait silently for a few minutes, maybe hoping the elevator will move by itself.

"A-are we moving?" Zahara whispers finally.

"I don't think so." I grope around in the dark until my hand brushes against a length of rope. "Looks like this is a manual elevator."

There's a flash of light as Tirto turns his holographic maps on, making it easier to see. "We've got to get down twenty-five more floors."

Alexien frowns. "Does the elevator even make it that far down?"

"I can't see why it wouldn't."

I look up at the hole the rope disappears into. "Do you think this is a single or double system?"

"Double," Lia answers immediately.

I grab the rope with both hands. "Alright. Pull down, we'll go down."

The rope really isn't smooth, and whatever the counterweight is isn't light, either. Needless to say, I can practically feel the rope burn forming as we pull. At least were not pulling up rather than down - we wouldn't have the force of gravity and our own weight to help us.

Even with all that, we should've been moving only a floor per minute or so, and it would take almost half an hour to get to the floor we want. That would take too much time. The other team outside can't hold for that long. The fact that we have Zahara with us means we're going by floors fifteen seconds at a time, even if she can't go full-power in case she breaks the rope.

Your letters shimmer in the dark. 6 1/4 minutes.

Is that how long it should take us?

That's what the calculator says.

Six minutes and fifteen seconds of pulling down. My shoulder is going to kill me.

It's not long until Tirto's light from his holograms shut off, leaving us in total darkness.

"How are we going to tell when it's our floor?" Alexien points out after a while. "There's no light and no indicators on this side of the doors."

"Guessing?" I suggest.

"We'll end up dead that way." Lia jerks on the rope once. "There have been notches in the rope for every floor. Eleven so far."

I didn't feel any notches in the rope, but that suggestion is better than mine. It means we're around Floor 9 or 8 now. Just a few more minutes to go.