The tunnel ended at a heavy steel door that looked like it belonged on a submarine. Elias stood in front of it, his chest pumping as he tried to catch his breath. He was shivering so hard his teeth actually clicked together. His jeans were soaked to the knees in that nasty tunnel water, and every time he moved, his wet shoes made a heavy, sloshing sound. He felt like a drowned rat standing in the middle of the most expensive building in the city.
He looked at the keypad next to the door. It was supposed to be a high-tech scanner, but someone had smashed the plastic screen with a heavy tool. Shards of glass were all over the floor, reflecting the weak yellow beam of his flashlight like tiny diamonds. He reached out, expecting the door to be locked, but when he pushed, it swung open with a long, slow groan.
Someone had put a piece of duct tape over the latch so it couldn't click shut.
Elias stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The air changed instantly. The tunnel had been damp and stinking, but the inside of the Glass Tower felt like a giant refrigerator. It smelled like expensive floor wax and ozone. It was so quiet he could hear the humming of the massive server cooling units somewhere deep in the walls. It didn't sound like machinery; it sounded like the building was breathing in and out.
He was in a concrete stairwell with no windows. He flicked his flashlight upward, but the beam didn't reach the top. It was just an endless spiral of grey steps and yellow railings. He started to climb.
His legs felt like lead weights. By the time he reached the third landing, his lungs were burning. He stopped to rest, leaning his back against the cold concrete wall. The silence was starting to get to him. He reached into his pocket and felt the red marker again. Just touching it made his skin crawl. He wondered how many other things the "Scrubber" had done while he was "asleep." Had he walked past people? Had he looked them in the eye while he was possessed by a computer program?
He shook the thought out of his head and kept moving, his wet boots squeaking on every step. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. It felt like the loudest sound in the world.
On the fifth floor, he saw a security camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. He froze, hiding in the shadows of the railing, waiting for the little red light to blink or for a siren to go off. But as he got closer, he realized the camera was dead. Someone—the other version of him—had climbed up there and painted over the lens with thick, messy streaks of red ink. It looked like a bleeding eye staring down at him.
Elias felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold air. It was like he was following a ghost of himself through the building. He wasn't breaking in; he was just returning to a crime scene he hadn't finished yet.
He finally reached the heavy fire door for the main server level. This door didn't have tape on the latch. He tried the handle, but it wouldn't budge. He looked at the electronic lock. This one wasn't smashed. It was glowing a steady, soft blue, waiting for a code he didn't have. He stood there for a minute, feeling stupid and tired, wondering if he'd come all this way just to get stuck at a door.
Then, he looked down at his own hand. His fingers were stained with red ink.
Without really thinking about it, he reached out and pressed his thumb against the fingerprint scanner. He expected it to turn red and beep an error. Instead, the light turned green. The lock made a satisfied click and the door popped open an inch. The "Scrubber" hadn't just broken in; he had registered Elias's own body into the building's security system. He was part of the machine now.
The room behind the door was huge and dark. It was filled with rows and rows of black server towers that looked like giant tombstones in a graveyard. Thousands of tiny green and blue lights flickered in the dark, blinking fast like a heartbeat. The air was freezing in here, and the wind from the cooling fans blew his wet hair across his forehead. He turned off his flashlight. The glow from the servers was enough to see by.
Elias walked into the center of the room. He felt small. All the data in the city—everyone's bank accounts, their private messages, their secrets—it was all sitting right here in these black boxes. And somewhere in the middle of it all was the program that was eating his mind.
He saw a glowing terminal at the far end of the row. It was the only screen that was turned on. As he walked toward it, he saw something that made him stop in his tracks. Sitting on top of the server rack right next to the computer was a small, plastic cap.
The cap to his red marker.
He reached out and picked it up. It was still warm, like someone had just set it down a few seconds ago. He turned around fast, swinging his arms out, looking for anyone hiding in the shadows.
"I know you're here!" he shouted.
His voice was swallowed by the loud hum of the machines. There was no one there. But when he looked back at the computer screen, a single line of text was typing itself out in bright red letters, over and over again, filling the entire monitor:
HELP ME FINISH IT. HELP ME FINISH IT. HELP ME FINISH IT.
Elias reached for the keyboard, but his hand stopped. His reflection in the dark glass of the monitor didn't look like him. His eyes looked hollow, and for a split second, he thought he saw a flash of red ink behind his own pupils.