“Fucked-up beyond imagining happens,” Chloe finished.
“I promise I’ll let you know,” I said.
“You’d better,” she said as she packed up her laptop. “I’m going to work, but if you find anything else like that weird demon rabbit QR code bullshit, you call me right away.”
I nodded.
“We’re going to figure this shit out, K.”
“Are we?”
“You’re goddamn right we are.”
19
FOURS
I walked down the street toward the arcade, a thin hooded sweatshirt my only protection against the pouring rain. I could feel the tiny rocks and pebbles on the wet asphalt through the thin soles of my favorite brown leather boots as I ignored the Don’t Walk sign and jogged across the street.
I was about half a block away from the arcade when I felt the familiar sensation.
It began, like it always did, with a deep tingling in the pit of my stomach—a deep tingling would soon turn into a fuzzy thick vibration. And then the worst of it would begin.
Fuck. It was happening again.
I lunged for a nearby lamppost in an attempt to avoid what I knew was going to happen next. What happened next was the end of the world.
Gravity was the first thing that went.
Everything that wasn’t tied down left the surface of the Earth at once and began moving slowly upward. The screaming and crying of people and animals was deafening as we all began our inevitable ascent toward oblivion.
It must have been a comet or asteroid strike of some kind that had knocked our planet out of orbit, or perhaps our galaxy had bumped into another larger system out in space. Whatever had happened, one thing was perfectly clear: Everything was over, and all that was left was the dying.
No matter what we’re doing—sitting still on our couches or lying in our beds—every single one of us is moving through the universe at somewhere around 1.3 million miles per hour. We have no idea just how terrifyingly exposed we are—tiny things on a tiny world stuck inside a relatively small galaxy whipping through deep space at an alarming rate of speed. Anything apocalyptic could happen at any time.
And now it finally had.
My fingers missed the lamppost I’d lunged for by inches, and I continued my ascent up into a cool, seemingly endless blue that would eventually become a thick, infinite, inky black.
Just as I left the atmosphere and entered the darkness that marked the edge of deep space, I spotted the tower, soaring up from below.
Babel. Babylon. Ziggurat.
These were the names that popped into my mind when I first saw it, rising up from the blue-green surface of the Earth into the cool black nothingness of space.
I wondered why we couldn’t see this thing from Earth. How had we never discovered it? I tried to see the bottom, to figure out its geographic location, but I wasn’t able to see enough of the Earth’s surface to place the tower among the familiar shapes of the continents.
As I continued speeding upward I wondered what it was going to feel like to inhale the empty vacuum of space. Then, as if on cue, everything dimmed and I began drifting away from consciousness. At that moment, my outstretched hand brushed against the wall of the monolithic thing, and some kind of panel or door opened.
In that split second, just before I’d completely moved past the tower and into the permanent darkness, I was somehow able to grab on to the edge of the doorway and pull myself into the enormous black structure.
Once inside, the door slid shut behind me, and I found myself standing in what appeared to be an elevator made out of the same material as the exterior surface.
The elevator was completely empty except for a symbol set into the wall at eye level: a small circle balanced on the tip of a triangle. It reminded me of a keyhole someone might peep through in an old movie. There was a soft white glow emanating from the circle.
It was a button.
I had no idea if it would take me up or down. I pressed it, and after a moment, the elevator began ascending.
I’d been going up for what felt like a minute or so when the light coming from the circle began to change color, slowly morphing from a soft white to a bright red. At that point, the elevator sped up and began shaking violently, then we changed direction with a forceful lurch and I was thrown to the ground.
I was now moving horizontally, pinned to the side wall as the elevator continued to accelerate.
After what felt like an eternity, the elevator eventually slowed down, finally coming to a complete stop.
I stood up, leaned against the side to catch my breath, and waited for the doors to open.
Then, without warning, the elevator was descending.