It's My Party

One of the doors had several additional portable lights by it, and instructions for how to proceed to Kappa Alpha. Jada tried the heavy glass door and was somewhat surprised to find it unlocked. Kappa Alpha might still be a hoax, but if so the pranksters had somehow procured access to the unfinished mall.

Following the directions, Emily and Jada began to follow a winding path, picking up new directions at each leg of the journey. After the first ten minutes, Jada had the impression they were playing a childish game of treasure map through endless corridors. Their walk was full of twisty turns traversing shopping areas and several eating pavilions, one with a great hexagonal food court with a spiraling motif in the floor. Jada thought most of the design work was okay, and occasionally the novelty was interesting. A few things though looked rather gaudy.

As their journey progressed, they came to other areas that were obviously going to be residential. There were slanting rows of apartments with a modest pool and tennis courts nearby. They walked down one row and then seemed to backtrack half the distance on another. Their path was becoming so convoluted, Jada began to suspect it was intentionally complex.

They both shivered in their coats as they walked through the unheated corridors. It seemed colder inside than it was out. And the moon was shining brightly again. Jada saw dim images of a great exterior hexagonal courtyard in the silver light, overlooked by what would be future garden condominiums adjacent to a food mart. It looked like it would be a convenient place to live. Perhaps having a frat house here was actually possible.

Jada was amazed they were able to walk through all the unfinished areas unchallenged, but except for the lit signs guiding their way, the place seemed deserted, and the smell of heavy construction was everywhere.

Eventually their path took them back to a commercial shopping area. Jada guessed the mall was months away from opening. Most of the stores they had passed were empty shells with bare concrete for floors and walls, and the few shops that did have shelves and their signage up were devoid of merchandise. And they often saw staircases that were roughly poured in concrete but still unfinished.

In the final part of their journey, they took a stairwell two levels below ground to what looked like a very long and poorly lit maintenance tunnel. In the far distance they could see a much brighter light. As they walked the tunnel, Jada began to feel uneasy and debated whether to voice her concerns to Emily. She finally decided to wait until they reached the far light. She coughed and realized her throat felt very dry, and she mentioned the fact to Emily.

"Yeah? Mine too. I just noticed it. I could really use something to drink."

At last they came to their first indication of hospitality, several tables with lights and a large selection of refreshments. Their trail ended in a small room with the tables to the right of a single elevator. The room was at the top of a T intersection, with new corridors running left and right into the distance. There was also a steel door to the left of the elevator which Jada assumed was a stairwell. The underground room felt very drab, with damp air and an almost freezing temperature. All the walls and floor and ceiling were made of simple concrete.

On the lit tables were plastic cups and all sorts of cold sodas and hot drinks in electric urns. There was also a large sign that read, "Have a drink, choose an access code, enter a party before expiration. Kappa Alpha." Jada noticed a large trash can nearby nearly overflowing with used cups.

Emily smiled happily and gloated as she grabbed a new cup and poured herself a large drink from one of the urns. "Oh yee of little faith. Hot chocolate too, my favorite!"

Jada raised her eyebrows. "I admit it. I'm shocked we've gotten this far. But I still don't hear any music. This place is as silent as a tomb."

"So what? We're below ground now. The party must be upstairs. Hey! This hot chocolate is delicious! Try some."

Jada shook her head in disbelief as she looked back at the bare tunnel. She couldn't shake the feeling of being vulnerable. She walked to the left of the elevator and tried the door. It was unlocked and did indeed lead to stairs heading up, but the stairwell was completely dark. Jada shivered in the damp air and let the door close by itself. "Emily, it's creepy down here."

"Well, we'll be leaving soon. Hang on." Emily looked at a clock embedded in the frame surrounding the elevator. It had a double digital readout, and the first white number was 17:08:02 and counting upward, the green number beneath it was 00:14:07 and counting downward. There was also a small notice below the clocks stating that the maximum capacity of the elevator was eighteen people.

Emily glanced at her watch and thought the time was accurate. It had taken them a half hour to walk here from the parking lot. It was over two kilometers of walking, but they appeared to have made their goal with a little time to spare. She smiled happily and poured a second hot chocolate and handed it to Jada.

Jada took a sip and frowned. "Yuck. It tastes like metal."

"What? Mine doesn't." Emily grabbed Jada's cup and took a long, slow sip. She shook her head.

"You don't taste it?"

"It tastes like dark chocolate. I love it." Emily handed the cup back to Jada.

Jada plucked a cube from an ice bucket to rinse out her mouth. She sucked for a few seconds and then spat the cube into her cup. "Oh hell! I think it's in the ice too." Preoccupied with her drink, she failed to notice the elevator control light flicker on.

Emily picked up another cube from the same bucket, licked it lightly, and then crunched and ate it. "Jada, are you playing with me?"

"No, I swear. There's a salty metallic taste. Maybe it's faint but it's there."

"Oh Jada, it's just the tap water." Emily returned to reading their latest instructions. "There seem to be six party themes. They're all disco oldies. We get to choose which party we like."

"Yeah? How strange." Jada looked at the selection list. 1) It's My Party 2) Great Balls of Fire, 3) House of the Rising Sun 4) I Can See Clearly Now, 5) In the Year 2525, and 6) Stairway to Heaven. "This is ridiculous!" she said turning to Emily and laughing.

Emily was grinning too. "Wow, I haven't heard Zager and Evans sing that chestnut since junior high."

"Yeah well, 2525 is the only one I don't like. Pick something else." Jada studied the instructions for a moment, muttering to herself. "This is so absurd! Twenty-character access codes to ride in an elevator?!"

"And where do we enter them?" Emily muttered back. There was only the single lit button recessed in the wall, and Emily pushed it. The elevator door obediently slid open and she entered. It was a cavernous elevator obviously designed of holding large freight, almost three meters wide by four meters deep. Emily thought it was capable of holding eighteen people easily. "In here!" she called out.

Jada entered the elevator and saw a small keyboard protruding from the wall on her left. There were absolutely no other controls inside the elevator, and the setup was so odd that the lack of an emergency call system and fireman's override went unnoticed. Jada idly typed randomly on the keyboard, filling a one-line display with characters until she stuck her twentieth key, at which time the keyboard gave an angry beep and the display reset to empty. "Is this some kind of joke?" she wondered.

Emily walked outside the elevator and after a moment called out, "Type C V 5 W…"

"What?"

"I'm giving you the access code for It's My Party."

"You actually want to try this?" Jada called back as a silent fleeting thought crossed her mind. "What the hell are we getting into?"

"Sure!"

"Emily…" A second fleeting thought and shiver: "This is so incredibly absurd!"

"Come on Jada! C V 5 W…"

A third and final fleeting thought: "Oh, what could possibly happen? Just do it." Jada typed and called back, "Entered C V 5 W."

" B H D Y…"

"What do you want to bet all six codes go to the same place?"

"We're running out of time! B H D Y..."

"Entered B H D Y. And that place is right here. The elevator doesn't move."

"S Z 9 K…"

"This is so stupid… Entered S C 9 K."

"What?! The second letter, did you say Z or C?"

"I typed C as in cat."

"It should have been a Z as in zebra."

"Emily, there's no backspace on this keyboard."

Emily glanced at the green display counting down to zero and grunted. "Come on Jada! Just type in garbage and start over! C V 5 W…."

On a hunch Jada tried a blue key at the far left of the keyboard and saw all her previous typing disappear. She was finding it very hard not to laugh. "Let's forget the elevator. How about we try walking up the Stairway to Heaven instead? We could use your cell phone for a light."

"Jada! C V 5 W!"

A moment later Emily entered the elevator as Jada typed in the last four keys of a correct code. The elevator door closed silently behind them. The small display started flashing two blue sets of numbers, a static 037:110 and what appeared to be a time index of 00:03:28 that was counting down in one-second intervals.

"Oww," cried Jada. "I'm feeling a headache, really painful. What the hell is happening?!" She stumbled, almost spilling her drink and looking as if she wanted to lie on the floor. The pain was so intense she dimly wondered if she would vomit. It was a terrible and uniquely tearing pain, as if her mind were being pulled apart from the inside.

Emily petted on friend in compassion and then held her to keep her from falling. "You want me to help you sit down?"

"I want this pain to end! Oww!"

"Try taking a drink!"

Jada did what her friend suggested, taking a big gulp before remembering that she didn't like the taste. The effect was immediate and profound. Within seconds all of her pain disappeared.

"You look like you're feeling better?"

Jada blinked at her friend and then stared at the cup in her hands. "I feel fine. No pain at all. That was so randomly bizarre. How did you know I should drink?"

"I feel it too, a slight decrease in pressure. I think the elevator is rising."

"What?!" Jada looked at her friend totally bewildered. "It didn't feel like ear pressure."

"Huh? It didn't?"

"No, not at all. Emily, what the hell is going on?!"

Emily looked very confused and shrugged. "I was always pretty good at sensing pressure changes. I think we're rising, a lot too."

"But that's impossible. Emily, this is a shopping mall, not a skyscraper."

There was a long moment of silence. "Yeah, I know. Well, what do you think the elevator is doing?"

It was Jada's turn to consider. The sensation of movement was subtle, a vague feeling of motion without any mechanical vibration. "If I had to guess, I think we're heading down, very slowly. And… Oh, this is so absurd. I've also have this feeling of great speed at the same time. Don't ask me to explain it. It's just a… Do you feel any vibrations? I don't."

Emily shook her head. "No, and we're not going down. We were underground already. We can't be going down. Besides, my ears don't lie."

"Oh Emily, I know you're not lying. But maybe your ears are being deceived. Why did we ever get into this trap?!" Jada looked around critically, for the first time awakening to the possibility of danger.

"This setup is ridiculous! There are no safety features at all. Look at this thing! No phone, no emergency stop button. My gosh, look at the ceiling! And the floor!" The floor looked like a single piece of polished stone, and the ceiling was one smooth steel plate with dimples for the white diodes. "There's no escape hatch! Who would ever build something like this?!"

"Do you think this elevator is a prank?"

The question brought Jada up short. "I hadn't thought of that." She looked around for a moment and considered. "There's absolutely nothing amateurish about its construction. Look how the keyboard flows out of the wall. It's a beautifully integrated design. Could a bunch of frat boys build something like this?"

Emily ran her hand across the wall and door. The interior cage was rock solid, huge, and seemed to be constructed of several different alloys of burnished metal. The net effect was one of unique power and beauty. "No. This elevator is no hack job. I don't understand…"

"Neither do I. It's beautiful precision engineering but without safety features."

Emily grimaced. "Which should be impossible! Nobody builds like this! How could we have been so stupid?"

Jada thought for a moment and remembered something from her one elective course this term. It covered the history of science. "I think it's our culture. We rely on technology for everything. We've learned to trust it, and our trust has become blind. We never saw the danger. If Vermont Power & Light has a blackout right now, we'll be in really serious trouble. Nobody even knows we're down here."

"Oh, don't go there. Jada, when we leave the party, we'll take another way back to my car, okay?"

"Absolutely. We'll take the stairs." There was nothing else to do but wait, and the wait wasn't long. After a short period of time, the counter reached zero and the two women jumped when the side wall opposite the keyboard began to slide open.

Chapter 3.

Jada and Emily were somewhat amazed to see a normal-looking party before them. People were chatting spread out over a very comfortable and well appointed lounge area. The area was pleasantly heated and very spacious, and the two women gladly took off their coats.

Jada guessed the lounge to be about 240 square meters in area. It had very square proportions except for two slightly beveled corners on the wall containing the elevator. Jada turned around and studied the elevator as its door closed. Exiting 90 degrees from the direction they had entered surprised her greatly. She had been in numerous elevators in her life which opened on both ends, but never one like this. Facing the elevator, she also noticed a door to its left. Jada assumed it would lead to the stairwell she saw in the basement.

Jada turned around again and joined Emily in examining the room and the party. It looked like a very nice place. There were generous four-meter ceilings in the lounge and also in a huge kitchen area further on. Jada took a few steps and paused. She felt a bit light on her feet, a little out of balance. She took another few steps and sensed her body adjusting. After a moment everything seemed fine. Jada shrugged and thought it night be an aftereffect of the strange and terrible pain.

Meanwhile Emily had done a quick headcount and was standing there frowning. There were a lot fewer people here than she had been expecting. Besides Jada and herself, there were perhaps a dozen women and only three guys, with everyone looking about undergraduate age. She sighed in disappointment and examined the room again. There was some soft disco music coming from an impressive sound system along the wall behind them, and a very expansive buffet was laid out on their right alongside a long bank of dark windows. The food smelled enticing, enough to make Emily feel hungry.

A handsome young guy noticed the new arrivals and came over to greet them. "Welcome to Kappa Alpha land. I'm Mark."

Jada had a good first impression of the man. He was polite, very good looking, tall, and most importantly his eyes were both cheerful and respectful. Jada nodded at him but felt compelled to complain. "Thanks for having us. I'm Jada and this is my roommate Emily. Mark, we really have to mention your idea of an elevator is horrible."

Mark raised his eyebrows. "Oh sorry! I didn't mean to deceive you. I'm not from Kappa Alpha. We just got here ten minutes ago. Are you that car that pulled in behind us?"

Emily cocked her head. "Uh huh. Us?"

Mark turned to Emily. "I came with my younger sister and two of her friends. They're all seniors at BHS." Mark turned back to Jada and gave her a long, curious look. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

Jada laughed. "Oh, I've heard that pickup line before!" She was surprised to see Mark give a genuine blush.

Emily spoke up, coming to Mark's rescue. "BHS?"

"Uh, yeah, Burlington High School. And I agree with you, that elevator is one weird piece of work."

Emily nodded and then recognized a couple of her classmates getting seconds from the buffet. She excused herself and wandered over to say hello. Three other young women came by and said brief hellos to Jada but seemed more interested in the elevator. Mark filled Jada in. "We were just having a discussion when you arrived, what would happen when the countdown hits zero. This is my sister Madison, and her friends Ashley and Hannah."

"I'm betting the boys of Kappa Alpha finally appear," said Madison. "We've been asking around. Everyone here is a visitor. No one has seen a host yet."

"Really?" replied Jada. "That sounds so odd." She turned and looked back at the elevator. In the frame was a triple digital display, somewhat similar to what was in the basement below. The white number was now registering 17:20:35, the green number 00:01:34, and there was also a static blue number registering 037:112.

Jada felt a shiver as she watched the green number count down. She had the weirdest feeling her last chance to escape was somehow slipping away. She looked at Madison. "Well, we'll find out soon enough. So you think we'll meet our hosts, huh?"

Ashley piped up. "My guess all the lights will go out and we find out how haunted this"

"Oh, knock it off Ashley! I don't want to hear it!"

Jada turned to Hannah. "You're worried?"

Hannah blushed. "Just a little. That elevator ride was creepy!"

Jada nodded sympathetically. "Yeah, it really was."

They waited around for another minute, watching the final seconds expire. Zero hour was a bit of a disappointment. The only visible change was that the green number changed to red and remained a static 00:00:00. Curious to see what would happen, Jada pushed the button to open the elevator and it opened immediately. After stepping inside, she tried the keyboard console and found it was without power. Suddenly feeling nervous she quickly left the enclosed space. A few seconds later the door silently slid closed.

They chatted for a few minutes and then headed over to the buffet. The food selections were fabulous, fresh shrimp and lobster, chicken and prime rib, and an unusual seafood entrée that tasted somewhat like a scallop but was the size and color of a golden pancake. There were also platters offering a great variety of tasty vegetables and delicate sauces. Jada and her new acquaintances loaded up their plates and sat down, and then enjoyed their meal so much little was said until they were finished eating. After a bit of persuasion by Madison, she and her two friends began busing a large pile of used dishes into the nearly kitchen.

"That was remarkable," Jada finally commented.

Mark nodded and looked up fondly from his empty plate. "Yes, exceptional. Madison and I spend summer vacations in Europe with our parents. We've eaten at The Fat Duck in Berkshire, El Bulli in Spain, Pierre Gagnaire and the Guy Savoy in Paris, nothing was ever better than this."

"Really? But who could cater something like this here?"

"I don't think this was catered. Look at these serving trays. See the Kappa Alpha logo? I think the trays all came from the frat's kitchen." Mark thought for a moment. "Maybe Kappa Alpha has a world-class culinary prodigy." He blinked his eyes. "And that large golden scallop, I've never tasted anything like it. Fabulous stuff."