X-Marks: Rising Shadows

Only

We emerged from the hole in a dimly lit maintenance room. Our faces were covered in dust, and our clothes reeked of each other. Maybe it was because I hadn't slept, or because I could feel the icy steel of the machine on my back every time I closed my eyes, but the night before had been the longest night that I could remember.

We all knew the plan. We had to get to the top floor of the Union tower and find the machine, and hopefully, while I was under, we could locate Mat. My heart raced up and down my chest like the elevators of the tower. I needed to see his dark green eyes gazing down at me one more time. This couldn't be how this ended.

"We need to find a way to get to the top floor without alerting Gen and her security," Dimitri said and paced around the empty concrete room that dripped clouded water from the ceiling.

"We could use the maintenance elevators," Nate whispered, and pointed to a steel crate fixed into the back wall, "Since we're already here we won't have to pass any locks. Even better, maintenance elevators can go to any floor after hours. But, I can't say we won't be caught on a video feed."

"Then we can't do that!" Evee said, the distress in her voice rising."

"There was never anything we could do," Dimitri said calmly, "We're going to have to move faster than their eyes can see."

Evee put her hand to her chin, "There has to be something else we can do."

"This is the only choice we have," Dimitri said and walked towards the maintenance elevator at the back wall.

The elevators thick red bars stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Nate walked to its side and let down a massive black lever that released the doors. We each stepped inside and waited to be lifted up, while Dimitri fiddled with its keypad.

After the sound of the doors latched shut, the elevator ascended. The stale air rushed at our sides through the open crate. It was a fast elevator, and before I could count the floors, we arrived at the top, level one hundred twenty-three.

The elevator released us in a hard thud, shaking my already unsteady insides. We were in the middle of another maintenance room, this one much less abandoned than the previous one. The bright buttons of control panel overlooked many screens with video feeds of different sections of a room filled with glass shelves.

"Where do we go now?" I asked.

"We're close," Dimitri said, looking at the glowing blue slate below his chin.

"The storage room should be just behind this door and to the left," Nate said and began walking towards the door.

Dimitri followed, as did Evee, Macie and I.

The halls of this floor were an unsettling kind of dim. The lights were barely above pitch darkness and just enough to make my eyes strain. We walked the floors like we were stepping on fragile glass.