207 We need to go deeper

{futuristic world}

{Sansoul point of view}

-I think we're safe…" I said in a tone that reflected my doubt as I hesitated to look away from the entrance door and to Juliette.

Glancing at the blond teenager I noticed her pale face and trembling hand as she stared at the ceiling, a gun still in hand, fuming hot.

Walking to her in a hurry I called out to her, trying to get her to stand up, but she didn't respond. Her eyes were locked on the hole the beam of super-heated metal she had fired had pierced in the roof.

If I hadn't pulled her back, she would have killed someone.

The distress in her eyes, the horror of what could have been, the paralyzing fear of realizing what you were about to do, of what I had already done.

Silently sitting next to her, I knew she needed time to come to terms with what she had attempted. No words of mine would reach her, not here, not now.

All I could do was stand next to her, to let her know I was there for her.

We stood in place for who knows how long, her expression slowly changing from a stage of grief to the next. Denial of what she had tried, hatred to herself for shooting, bargaining as she tried to convince herself that it wouldn't have killed anyone. I could almost hear her thoughts: "The beam would have missed" or "Even if they had died, it wouldn't matter right? It would have been for the best."

I knew what she felt, I knew the overwhelming feeling of guilt that was already washing over her as she continued her path toward acceptance and making her mind. I knew because I had been there many times before, far too many times before.

Gently placing a hand on her shoulder, I felt her gaze turn to me for an answer, for a solution to her problem. But I didn't have one. There were no easy answers.

Feeling her lying against me, I gently rubbed her shoulder and told her that I was there for her, that I'll be there for her whenever she would need me.

Staying seated for a bit long in complete silence, only partially interrupted by the sound coming from the crowd trying to get in the entrance to the tower and being interrupted, as if an invisible barrier was keeping them out.

Finally, removing my hand from her shoulder I stood up, looked down at her and in an optimistic tone said: "Come on, let's continue." while raising an arm toward her.

Hesitantly grabbing my hand with a weak grasp before pulling herself up.

Now that we were both up, we started by scanning our surroundings to prepare for the next step of our plan.

The tower's entrance hall, had, for some reasons, been shaped as a 20th century hotel reception deck with flat black and white walls, a high roof, multiple vaguely artistic piles of random shapes.

Looking at the right revealed what I could only assume used to be a large open dining area, but which had become a gigantic maze of wooden chairs and tables imitating a plastic texture for God knows why.

On the left and a bit at the back after the counter was a long corridor designed like a corridor you'd find in a manor with very large very fancy decoration and door frames leading to rows after rows of elevators.

Squinting a bit hader, I noticed that one of the elevator doors was open, and, considering the lack of alternatives, decided to go that way.

As I got closer to the elevator, I started hearing a few, somewhat repetitive metallic sounds on top of a light echo of something rolling on the ground.

Arriving to the elevator I created a large metallic stick on which I strapped a mirror allowing me to see inside without having to get in.

From what I could tell the elevator in itself was missing, with only the long vertical tune being visible. Judging by the presence of a soldier plaque of concrete at the bottom I further guessed that this specific elevator was made with the only purpose of going up, which made it useless to our mission.

"But that doesn't explain the sounds" I told myself as I moved the mirror around to get other angles until noticing a meter tall cavity right under the door frame from which a bit of light was coming.

Getting closer I moved the mirror in the elevator cage while staying out and used it to look in the small hole where I found a small robot made of a large metallic box mounted on a single wheel and with only one arm standing in front of an electronic circuit.

-Isn't that the robot I gave an arm to?" I asked aloud, causing said robot to stop whatever he was doing, turn around toward the elevator cage, exit the thing before turning to me and saying: "L'ascenseur prise de vue menant jusqu'au dernier étage est actuellement en réparation, le temps approximatif de réparation est de 3 heures et 42 minutes. La fondation vous prie de bien vouloir prendre le 3ème ascenseur jusqu'au 722 étages puis continuée à pied jusqu'au 1240 étages pour un temps de marche estimé de 8 heures et 15 minutes."

-Uhm… kay?" I answered in a confused tone, before stepping back as I saw the robot node, saying something else in a perfectly incomprehensible language and then going back to its repairs.

Taking a step back I wasn't exactly sure of what had happened beyond the fact that the elevator was broken in some way.

Suddenly feeling someone pressed down on my shoulder my heart skipped a bit as I jerked my head around, only to see Juliette's sweet, but still clearly pale and hesitant face as she quietly told me, almost in a whisper, that she had noticed the presence of sines above each elevator door.

Looking at them, each door did have a specific sign with two different numbers on it most likely representing the range of floors it could go at. The door to my right was: "–12 à 243", the one beyond was "-1 à 722" so one and so forth, each with their own specific range that started at seemingly random numbers and ended at another without any kind of logic to why.

The 5 elevators on the right only had a range of 17 floors, whereas the third on the left had 724 floors (if we count floor 0) it could access, making the entire thing completely stupid.

The good news was that we just needed to find the one with the lowest number, hoppe in and get down carefree.

Steeping in the 4th elevator to the left, which had the overall lowest floor at -19.

After pressing the correct button, the elevator shook slight before emitting the usual *hum* sound as we gradually got deeper down the tower.

If the following levels were also that easy to reach, maybe we'd be done in only an hour. I mean, can this place have anything even worse than a horde of mind-controlled people?

*ding*

"Noticing that the elevator door had opened, Sansoul bravely stepped forward toward another day of work in his office."

Hey, exactly what I'm doi- wait, what the f*ck was that?

"Sansoul stopped and looked around in confusion after wondering if he had actually kept his office key on him, which he had, and thus started walking once more to his office where he would ecstatically wait for his new adventures in The Sansoul parable."