Star-Crossed

Part 40

The lobby of the archives building is clean and sleek. No decorations. Just a big desk at the center of the space, directly in front of the entrance.

I walk straight toward the main desk, where a very old lady with big, thick glasses sits and watches a hologram. I clear my throat.

"Ma'am," I whisper. She doesn't move.

"Ma'am!" I whisper, this time a little bit louder. Still, no movement.

"Excuse me, MA'AM," I say, as loud as I can while still sort of whispering.

At this, she looks up, visibly annoyed and puts her finger to her mouth and responds, "Shhhh." Then she points behind her.

I roll my eyes and sigh. She can't even say hello? Smile? Anything?

She goes back to being all-consumed by whatever it is that she's watching - it looks like a movie. So, I walk over to where she pointed, which is toward the elevator. It sits directly behind her.

As I approach the elevator, I notice that there's no button to call it. I see a small pad to the side of it and press it with my index finger. Nothing happens. Then, I try my thumb. Again, nothing happens. I look back at the lady watching her movie and feel frustrated that she's ignoring me. How am I supposed to know how to use this thing?

Then, I stick my entire hand, palm facing down, onto the pad, and the elevator doors swing open, ready to take me where I need to go. I step inside and again place my entire right hand, palm-down, on another black pad inside the elevator.

This time, I see two buttons, one labeled "L" and one labeled "M". I assume "L" is for lobby and "M" is for main? I keep my palm facing down on the pad and press the button labeled "M" at the same time.

The doors close and whisk me downward. When they open again, I'm staring into a dark room with rows and rows of skinny, metallic shelves. I step outside of the elevator and the doors snap shut behind me.

It is very dark and cold down here - like a cave. I smile to myself as I stand inside of it for the first time, thinking about what Rex said earlier. I wonder if I'll catch anyone "getting down and dirty" as Rex said. It's so cold! How could people even enjoy doing that in here?

There are very few lights. The glow of people's hologram tablets is what keeps the space from being pitch black. And I see only a couple of those in the distance. The space is mostly empty at the moment.

I walk up to one of the metallic shelves and notice that it is meticulously labeled and has outlets underneath each of the labels for me to plug-in my hologram tablet.

Each shelf has a black pad on it as well. I assume that in order to access any content, I must first be scanned, to ensure that anyone outside of the Squad is not trying to break-in and access information that they shouldn't be seeing.

The shelves are organized by people's last names, first - like a phonebook of sorts. There are so many people's memories in here!

I walk over to the "M" section and look for Malik - Zayn's last name. I can't help it - I want to see if I can find anything interesting about him.

I finally find Malik and sift through all of the names, until I find Zayn's name. There are other Zayns, but they're spelled differently. "Zain" and "Xain" and "Zane" - but only one name spelled Z-A-Y-N.

I grab my tablet and plug it in. It lights up, asking me if I want to access specific memories of Zayn's or download everything that's currently on file. I don't really have time to sift through everything, so I just push "Download All" and Zayn's memories begin downloading onto my tablet. I wonder what I'm going to find out, I think to myself.