I'm walking down an endless hallway, impossibly wide, walls and ceiling stretching so high they disappear into darkness. The floor beneath my feet is solid concrete, cold and flat, extending in perfect geometric precision. Fluorescent lights flicker overhead, spaced at unnaturally even intervals, each casting a perfect circle of harsh white light.

  "You're late," Liberty Belle says, appearing beside me. She's wearing her costume, but it's wrong somehow - the blue too dark, the gold too sharp, edges cutting into the fabric like they might slice through to the skin beneath.

  "Late for what?" I ask, my voice echoing strangely through the vast space. "I didn't know we had a meeting."

  She doesn't answer, just keeps walking beside me. Her footsteps make no sound, though mine echo loudly against the concrete.

  "Where are we going?" I try again.

  "Eighteenth floor," she says, as if it should be obvious. "Don't worry, the elevator still works."

  But there's no elevator in sight, just the endless hallway stretching forward, its dimensions unchanging no matter how far we walk. The walls are bare concrete, occasionally interrupted by massive steel pipes and bundles of cables that run along them like exposed veins.

  "I don't understand," I tell her. "This building doesn't have floors. It's just a hallway."

  "Don't be ridiculous, Samuel," my grandfather says, suddenly on my other side. But it's not Pop-Pop Moe. It's a man I've never seen before, tall and gaunt with a trucker cap and a flannel shirt, face weathered by sun and wind. He looks down at me with eyes that seem to know me. "Every building has floors. That's what makes it a building."

  "Who are--" I start to ask, but he's already walking ahead, leading us around a corner I hadn't seen coming.

  The hallway abruptly opens into a vast circular chamber, the ceiling so high it's lost in shadow. The walls are lined with thousands of identical metal drawers, each with a small numbered label. In the center of the room stands a massive concrete pillar, thick as a redwood tree, with metal rungs embedded in it like a ladder, disappearing upward into the darkness.

  "You'll need to climb," Liberty Belle says, gesturing to the rungs. "Your file is at the top."

  "What file? What is this place?"

  Belle looks at me with something like disappointment. "This is Records, Sam. Where else would we keep your progress reports?"

  "I thought you were dead," I say, the realization hitting me suddenly.

  She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Death is just another filing system."

  The not-my-grandfather approaches the pillar and begins to climb, his movements unnaturally fluid for someone his age. It makes sense, of course, that they would be, given the extreme excess of elbows he has. "Come on, kid. Sharks don't have the luxury of standing still."

  "I'm not a shark," I protest, even as I find myself moving toward the pillar. "I just have the teeth."

  "Semantics," Belle dismisses with a wave of her hand. "You're whatever you choose to eat."

  This makes no sense, but I start climbing anyway, the metal rungs cold against my palms. As I ascend, I notice the drawers lining the walls have started to bulge outward, the metal bending as if something inside is pushing to get out.

  "Don't mind the overflow," not-my-grandfather calls down from above. "Filing system's been at capacity for decades. Too many reports, not enough drawers."

  I keep climbing, my arms beginning to ache. The pillar seems to stretch endlessly upward, the top no closer despite my progress. Below me, I can no longer see the floor, just darkness. Above, my grandfather has disappeared from view.

  "Belle?" I call out, but there's no answer.

  I climb faster, panic rising in my chest. The drawers around me are rattling now, metal doors straining against their locks. I can hear paper rustling inside them, thousands of pages shifting and sliding against each other.

  "This isn't real," I say aloud. "This is a dream."

  "Of course it is," says a voice from inside the nearest drawer, the words muffled but distinct. "That doesn't mean it's not important."

  "I don't understand what you want from me," I shout, throat aching. "There's no eighteenth floor! There's no building! It's just this pillar in an empty room!"

  The concrete floor below rushes up toward me at alarming speed.

  "Too late," not-my-grandfather sighs. "Guess we'll try again tomorrow."

  The floor rushes up to meet me, and I brace for impact--

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  My hands twitch violently, jerking me awake.

  I gasp, eyes snapping open, heart hammering in my chest like it's trying to escape. For a moment, I have no idea where I am, feeling the texture of concrete, rough and rigid with microbumps, rasping against every surface of my body. But reality reasserts itself quickly – the familiar ceiling of the Music Hall, the soft cushions beneath me, the distant hum of Tasha's laptop.

  What the hell was that? I don't usually remember my dreams, and when I do, they're not... whatever the hell that was. Was that a prophecy? Some kind of... Torah shit? No, Sam, you're just having nicotine dreams. Are nicotine dreams a thing? I run my hand through my hair, still feeling the tingle of concrete. It's not the first time I've seen Belle in my dreams - I get the distinct impression she's a frequent visitor even if I'm not remembering - but it was definitely the weirdest. Normally there's more flowers.

  I prop myself up on my elbows, wincing as my bruised wrists protest the movement. The light coming through the windows has changed – no longer the harsh morning glare but the golden glow of late afternoon. How long was I out?

  Across the room, Tasha sits at her monitoring station, headphones on, typing away. Maggie is still asleep on the couch, one arm dangling off the edge, fingers nearly brushing the floor. Blink is nowhere to be seen, probably went home at some point. And Gossamer–

  "Welcome back to the land of the living."

  I turn to find Gossamer sitting in a chair nearby, a mug of something steaming in her hands. Her hair is damp, like she's recently showered, and she's changed into fresh clothes.

  "How long was I out?" My voice comes out as a croak, throat still raw from Dead Drop's chains.

  "About nine hours," she says, checking her watch. "It's a little after four."

  I sit up fully, running a hand through my hair, which feels like it's been used as a nest by particularly aggressive birds. "Shit. Nine hours?"

  "You needed it," Gossamer shrugs. "We all did. Maggie's been out just as long. Blink went home around noon – her parents texted."

  Nine hours of unconsciousness. That's... not normal, even for me. I should probably be concerned about that, but right now I'm more focused on the dull ache in every part of my body and the sticky, gross feeling of having slept in my clothes.

  "Anything happen while I was doing my best impression of a coma patient?" I ask, swinging my legs over the side of the makeshift bed.

  Gossamer's expression shifts slightly, a hint of something I can't quite read. "Tasha's been monitoring the Rogue Wave recruitment. It's... evolved."

  That gets my attention. I stand, ignoring the protest from my muscles, and make my way over to Tasha's station. She doesn't notice me at first, absorbed in whatever she's watching on screen, until I tap her shoulder. She jumps slightly, then pulls off her headphones.

  "Hey, Sleeping Beauty," she says, but the usual sarcasm in her voice is muted. "Have a nice nap?"

  "Apparently I was hibernating. Goss says there's news?"

  Tasha nods, turning back to her screens. "The recruitment thing is all over HIRC. Not mainstream news anymore – they stopped covering it after the police officially warned people away – but the underground channels are buzzing."

  She pulls up a HIRC window, scrolling through a chaotic feed of messages. I catch fragments as they scroll by:

  "...found the second marker at the old factory..." "...anyone else get the blue envelope or just me?" "...definitely saw Jump being handed out at checkpoint 3..." "...some guy got arrested at Liberty Place..."

  "What am I looking at here?" I ask, struggling to make sense of the disjointed information.

  "It's a public feed where people are discussing the scavenger hunt," Tasha explains. "Most are using pseudonyms or burner accounts, but they're pretty open about what's happening. Seems like after the initial envelope distribution, candidates were sent on different paths through the city, collecting markers or completing tasks."

  "Like what?"

  "Varies wildly. Some talk about having to recover items from specific locations. Others mention meeting people for passwords. A few describe what sound like minor criminal acts – trespassing, graffiti, that sort of thing."

  "Testing their willingness to break rules," Gossamer says, joining us at the monitors. "Escalating commitment."

  "Exactly," Tasha nods. "And look at this." She switches to another window, this one showing what looks like a crude map of Philadelphia with various points marked in different colors. "I've been plotting the locations mentioned. Red dots are initial distribution points, blue are secondary checkpoints, green are what seem to be gather locations for different groups."

  I lean closer, studying the pattern. "They're all over the city."

  "But concentrating in certain areas," Gossamer points out, tapping the screen where several markers cluster. "Especially near universities and medical facilities."

  "Looking for people with actual science backgrounds," I murmur. "Makes sense if they want someone qualified."

  "There's more," Tasha says, pulling up yet another window. "Around noon, reports started coming in about a 'final challenge.' The details are sketchy, but from what I can piece together, the remaining candidates were directed to multiple meeting points for what some are calling 'interviews.'"

  "With Snake Oil?" I ask, a chill running down my spine despite the warmth of the room.

  Tasha shakes her head. "No names mentioned, but several people described someone in a 'fancy suit with a weird mask.'"

  "Monkey Business," Gossamer and I say in unison.

  "That's my guess," Tasha agrees. "And then the trail goes totally dead. Anyone who got to the Monkey Business phase just stops talking, every time, without fail. Either they're getting shot, unlikely, or he's contracting them into silence."

  "Perfect way to filter out law enforcement," Gossamer notes. "No cop could risk signing something like that."

  "And no way to fake it," I add. "The contracts are supernatural – you can't just forge a signature or use a fake name."

  A groan from the couch interrupts our discussion. Maggie sits up, hair sticking out at odd angles, blinking blearily at us.

  "Wha'd I miss?" she mumbles, voice thick with sleep.

  "Rogue Wave's recruitment drive is in its final stages," I tell her. "Some crazy Willy Wonka shit going on all over the city."

  She perks up immediately, sleep falling away. "And we're just sitting here?"

  "Gathering intel," Gossamer corrects. "Which is exactly what we should be doing."

  Maggie stumbles over to join us, peering at the screens. "So do we know who got picked? Who's the lucky mad scientist assistant?"

  "Tasha says anyone who gets far enough goes silent. So I don't think we're going to be getting any word anytime soon," I explain. "I wouldn't be surprised if we just never hear, straight up.

  "So we've missed most of it," She says, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice. I watch her gently bob up and down, stretching her limbs out, doing little hops on her forcefields to wake herself up.

  "We had to sleep eventually, Mags," Gossamer says gently. "Even the DVD takes shifts."

  She's right, of course, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. We were so close to potentially identifying Snake Oil's new assistant, maybe even getting a lead on Snake Oil himself, and we slept right through it. Argh!