Field Investigations

Chapter 21: Elevators

Jack was silent for a minute, staring at the yellow carpet that enveloped the floor.

"Huh," he said, frowning. It wasn't a sad frown, though. No, a thoughtful one. "I... I want to stay here. I do. It's just sometimes..." he glanced at the woman, who was looking to the side as if she wasn't interested in our conversation. I wondered if maybe he didn't want her to hear what he was about to say. "Sometimes, I wonder what would've happened if I wasn't... you know."

"No, yeah, I get it. I feel the same way a lot of the time," I told him.

We stood in an awkward silence for a second. "So, um, your home is pretty far from here. I mean, in Brazil. So what's it like?"

Oh, god. I needed to come up with something fast. "Well, it's very..." I reached back into my mind, searching for something, anything, I could say about Brazil. "It's warm," I said. "It's very warm there. And there are forests," I added, trying to improve my inadequate response. "Yeah, trees. And animals, of course. But mostly," I said, remembering what I'd thought on the bus about Canada. "It's a lot like here. I don't know."

"Oh-" he started, but I kept talking, desperate to make my answer more interesting.

"I don't remember it that well, but I remember a city," I said. "Yeah, a big city, with lots of skyscrapers. It was a while ago, though. It feels like it's been forever, really, since I've been there." I was sure there was a city somewhere in Brazil. 

"Oh, you mean Sao Paulo? Or Rio de Janeiro?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but he kept talking.

"Wait - sorry if I seem overexcited. I'm pretty interested in geography. It's kind of my hobby," he told me. "Since I can't really travel while I'm here, I sort of read about the places I want to go to someday instead. I'll never really go to any of them," he added quickly. "It's just something I like to - to read about."

"No, I get it," I said. "And yeah, I'm from Sao Paulo." That didn't seem like a statement that would be too easy for him to prove wrong. I smiled. "Don't be too sure you'll never go to any of them," I told him. "I mean, here I am in Canada. Maybe you'll get to Brazil once you finish up at the Academy."

"It's possible," he said. 

"So, um, these elevators are slow, huh?" 

"Yeah, sort of. You get used to them. Aren't they the same way at the headquarters in Brazil?"

Oh, what should I say? "Uh, yeah, I guess. I mean, I still miss those elevators that only took two or three minutes."

"You know why they're so slow?" he asked. I couldn't tell if he already knew or if he genuinely wanted me to tell him.

"Uh, no," I admitted. "Why?"

"Well, first of all, the building is pretty tall. Like, even at a normal elevator speed, it would take a good twenty minutes or so to get all the way from the bottom to the top. Mainly, though, it's because of the design of the elevator. They used to use elevators as conference rooms in the early days of the AFS, when they hadn't yet learned about the Green. When they were laying out plans for the building, they wanted to keep that option. For sentimental reasons, I guess. Anyway, if you go over to the panel here," he pressed down on a section of carpeted wall that was separated from the rest of the wall by a small gap that I hadn't even noticed, which spun out to reveal a grid of buttons, "you can make the elevator larger or smaller, change the color or material, whatever you want. That makes the elevator much heavier, though, so it goes up much more slowly."

"I didn't know that," I said. "That's actually really cool. I wonder if they have that same setup in Brazil." Yes, that was the perfect idea. Just pretend that I happened to not know much about the Brazil headquarters' elevator system. That way, I wouldn't need to say anything that could be contradicted. "So, what's your name?" I turned towards the woman. She was looking up at the elevator ceiling, evidently deep in thought. 

"Oh," she said, glancing around for a second in confusion before looking at me. "My name? I'm... Elyssa." I wondered why she hesitated. Was that her real name? If not, was she hiding her identity from me? Maybe she suspected that I wasn't legitimate. Or maybe she was just generally paranoid and didn't tell anyone her actual name. Whatever her reason for hesitating, though, my best course of action seemed clear.

"Hi, Elyssa. It's nice to meet you," I told her. "I mean, we already met, but not formally. You know. I'm Isa." The second the words left my mouth, I realized that I probably shouldn't have told her my actual name. It was too late now, though. 

She didn't respond, scowling slightly. I was confused until I realized that she was probably still annoyed because I didn't give her the information she wanted earlier. 

"Oh, I'm sorry about earlier," I told her. And I was. I really did feel for her, because she was trying to get information just like I was and hitting the same wall. Only, for her, I was the wall. I couldn't tell her anything about the project she had asked about, though, because I didn't know what the project was myself. "I really can't tell you about the project, but I'll try and find out if there's anything I can tell you that you'd find helpful." I probably shouldn't have made that promise, but I felt like I needed to offer something. I'd find a way out of actually having to tell her anything concrete.  

She didn't seem any happier, though. No, her scowl only deepened. She glanced furtively at Jack, who glanced down at the floor as I watched, confused. "Oh," I realized aloud. She didn't want me to reveal that she'd pressed me for information earlier. "Oh, sorry. So, um..."

We all looked around the elevator, avoiding each other's gaze. Finally, a few seconds later, the elevator dinged to a stop. Saved by the bell. 

"We - we're here," Jack said, glancing at us awkwardly. He stepped - no, squeezed - out of the elevator as soon as the doors were open wide enough, the woman and I following not too far behind.