Adam swiped the badge and the light on the card reader turned green. The door unlocked, and he pulled it open. A blast of frigid air rushed out to greet them. The stairwell beyond was darker than the lobby, lit by only a single light affixed to the wall. Adam leaned in cautiously, craning his neck to see. The stairwell ascended in a square spiral, landings leading to more stairs as they climbed into the gloom.

  "Anything?" Natalie asked, placing a hand on his back and peering over his shoulder. "That's a little anticlimactic. And Christ that's cold." She shivered and backed away.

  "It looks clear," Adam said. "The stairs are tight. If anything comes at us, it's going to be rough."

  Hector slung his shotgun and pulled the hammer off of his belt. "If the lobby is any indicator, it’s when something comes at us."

  “True enough. Definitely not just another day at the office,” Adam muttered.

  As long as it’s not Thursday.

  “What?” Jessica asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Adam said. He looked at the others, rolled his shoulders once, and stepped through the doorway.

  He listened. The only sounds in the hollow space were the hum of the air conditioning and his own breathing. Adam grabbed the handrail and leaned over the edge, looking down. The levels below were completely dark. He was reminded of the hospital, but without the oppressive atmosphere. The darkness didn't feel alive or malevolent, but that didn't mean it was safe.

  "I think we're good. Come on in." Adam turned and was met with a blank concrete wall where the doorway should have been. "Oh come on..." he groaned, running his hands across the wall and trying to suppress a rising wave of panic. After a minute he heard the echo of a door slamming shut from above.

  "Hello?" he called out impulsively, immediately regretting his decision as the word echoed, obscenely loud, throughout the stairwell.

  Yes, let's just announce to the whole fucking building you're here. Idiot.

  Nothing answered. Adam sighed and forced himself to relax, waiting for his heartbeat to settle back to some semblance of normal. He pulled the bat off his back and pushed power into his left hand. Holding on to the charge made his fingertips tingle uncomfortably, be he ignored the sensation and began to climb.

  Several minutes later, he'd lost track of how many levels he'd climbed. The sporadic locked doorways paired with the spiral pattern of the stairs made it difficult to judge exactly how many floors he'd gone up. A subtle burn had settled into his thighs and he paused to shake them out, massaging the muscle until the sensation faded.

  He leaned back over the edge and was met with the same darkness below and weak light above. His breath smoked as he began to climb again, carefully counting the sets of stairs. After a count of forty he had to stop again, his legs protesting the constant upward movement. Adam peered over the edge, once again met by darkness.

  Great. Trapped in an infinite staircase.

  He pulled a quarter out of his jacket pocket and tossed it into the void between levels. The quarter arced down, reached the center of the shaft, and shot upward as if it had been caught in an updraft.

  "Oh... shit."

  A second later the quarter shot upward from the darkness below, flashing in the dim light as it continued upward. Adam watched it zip by again and again, drawing closer to the shaft's center with each pass. Adam held out his hand and on the next pass he called the quarter back down, halting its movement and causing it to land in his palm.

  He pocketed the coin, raised his bat, and slammed it into the edge of one stair. The blow echoed obscenely loud in the tight space, but left behind a rough divot in the concrete. Without hesitating, he turned and descended the stairs, watching closely as he went. After several flights, he came across the same chipped step.

  Adam sat heavily at the top of the landing, his mind churning over the problem.

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  He couldn't go up.

  He couldn't go down.

  The only door was locked and was far too solid to batter down. He briefly considered jumping into the center of the shaft, but with the quarter's behavior he suspected he'd just fall in a loop with the added bonus of terminal velocity.

  The sudden urge to scratch at his cheek added one more complication to the mix, the ticking clock until the rune wore off and he became just another mindless office zombie.

  Adam rubbed his hands together and blew into them.

  "If I don't freeze to death first." He stuffed his hands into his pockets and his finger brushed the Seeker Stone. Instead of the familiar wave of vertigo, a sharp pulling sensation yanked behind his eyes, directing him down.

  Okay… Why not?

  He started down the stairs, keeping his hand firmly wrapped around the stone. After two flights the sensation shifted, pointing back the way he'd come. Adam reversed course and climbed, passing the chipped stair on his way back up. Then the pull reversed again and when he turned the chipped stair was gone.

  “Gaslit by a set of stairs,” he muttered, putting his hand on the rail and starting back down. He couldn’t decide if he was following a broken compass or working through some kind of stair-stepping combination lock. He closed his eyes and the process became a kind of moving meditation.

  One up, one down.

  Two up, three down.

  One up…

  He stepped down expecting another stair, but his foot hit flat ground and he stumbled. Adam's eyes snapped open to find an open doorway in front of him. He turned to look back. The staircase still spiraled upward into darkness, leading back the way he'd come.

  "Nope," he muttered, turning back to the door.

  Beyond the threshold, the air was perfectly still. A dim blue glow lit the space ahead, casting cold shadows across the floor. The carpet muffled his footsteps as he crossed the room, the air growing more frigid by the second.

  "What are you doing?" a voice asked.

  Adam spun so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet. His eyes darted around, searching for the source.

  "What does it look like I'm doing?" another voice replied.

  "It looks like you're trying to..." the next words slammed into his mind like a burst of garbled static, sharp, meaningless, and alien. "The language."

  Adam shook his head, struggling to dislodge the foreign phrase from his thoughts. He crept toward the row of tall cubicles, moving as quietly as possible.

  "No. I'm trying to integrate the..." the phrase repeated, setting his nerves on edge. "...into these rudimentary systems. They weren't designed using the same physical laws, much less with interaction in mind."

  "Well, we can't go home until the integration is complete," the second voice said.

  Adam pressed his ear against the cubicle wall. A rapid staccato of keystrokes echoed through the room, then abruptly stopped. "There it is. Look."

  "Yeah, that's definitely," static again. "We just have to do that a few thousand more times, then compile."

  The first voice groaned. "Check out the security feed."

  "We don't have time for that..." the second voice replied.

  "Just check it."

  Another burst of keystrokes followed. "When did THAT happen?"

  "Weren't you supposed to be watching the feeds?" the first voice demanded.

  "I set the drones on a loop. Nothing should have gotten past them." The second voice sounded flustered. "Scroll back through the recording."

  "Oh what the," static. "Look at what they're doing! That's disgusting." The first voice made a retching sound.

  "Ugh, it's the natives. Did... Did that one just rip a drone apart?" A series of rapid keystrokes punctuated the question. "They're going to be a problem. I think they killed everything on the first floor."

  "All of them?!"

  "Wait."

  "What?" the first voice asked.

  "One went into the stairwell," the second said, trailing off.

  The sudden chorus of laughter made Adam start, the wheezing sound doing his already frayed nerves no favors.

  "Did they think it would be that easy? Grab a badge then walk up the stairs?" The pair continued to laugh. A rhythmic pounding, like someone slamming their fist on a keyboard followed the laughter and eventually dissolved into a fit of giggles. Adam felt his cheeks flush with a mixture of embarrassment and anger while the voices mocked him.

  "I needed that" the first voice said, stifling a chuckle. "Did you know they evolved from apes? APES?"

  "Seriously? There's something really wrong with this planet," the second voice said.

  A moment of silence passed and Adam began to creep forward. He inched toward the next row of cubicles while the sound of typing returned.

  "He made it out of the stairwell," the second voice said, followed immediately by another burst of static. Adam froze, shouldering his bat and looking desperately for an exit.

  "How? They should be walking up and down until they starve to death." Another rapid-fire burst of keystrokes. "Oh... That's not good."

  "What now?!" the second practically shouted.

  "The others are climbing the elevator shaft."

  "Can you reroute more drones?"

  "Already done, but that's not the only problem."

  Static.

  "What else?"

  "The other one. It's on this floor."

  "Fuck it," Adam muttered, standing and stepping around the edge of the cubicle wall. The scene beyond etched itself into his brain, as permanent as The Announcement itself.