Elevator Secrets

Jake pushed the elevator button as many times as he could, hoping the machine would speed up. He knew that the elevator wouldn't go any quicker at the moment, he was being chased, so everything but him went slowly. He turned towards the long hallway and noticed Clide wasn't following.

"Clide! Hurry the hell up!" he yelled. Moments later Clide stumbled around the corner and ran down the hallway holding his gun. Jake left his gun where it was, but was prepared to take it out. Clide slid to a stop on the slick waxed floor and stopped himself on the wall.

"Where the hell were you?" Jack asked.

"What does it look like?!"

"It looks like you were draggin' ass!"

"Don't talk to me about draggin' ass! You're curious! You're the son of a-" just at that moment a few gunshots went off and the wall in between them sparked and dented from bullets. They both quickly turned to the end of the hallway and three men in suits were shooting at them. They both quickly dove behind the bureau and started shooting back.

After a few moments of intense gunfire, the elevator dinged and the doors slowly opened. They kept firing back until Clide realized the elevator was open.

"Jake! Get in the elevator!" he yelled. Jake didn't pay any attention, but quickly responded.

"No, you go first!"

"I'm not arguing with you! Get, in, the, elevator!" he yelled again. Jake hesitated and dove into the elevator.

"Hurry up! I'll leave without you!" he yelled. Clide rolled his eyes and spun into the elevator. He bent his gun around the corner and started shooting as Jake slid another magazine into his gun.

"What floor?!" Jake yelled. Clide stopped shooting and looked over at him with an aggravated look. Jake blinked stupidly waiting for an honest response.

"How about ground floor?!" he yelled sarcastically. Jake scoffed at him and pushed the ground floor button. The two men, one now being shot in the chest, ran towards the elevator. Jake kept pushing the ground floor button, again, trying to speed up the process.

"You keep pushing that button, your going to break the elevator." he said. Jake ignored him and kept pushing the button. The men stopped as the elevator door stopped. They were on the 32nd floor of the building, so it would be a while before they reached ground floor. One of the men grabbed the elevator door, and they both fought to get it open. After moments of struggle, they slowly pushed the doors opened and looked down into the shaft.

"I'm going to blow these punks out of this world." one of them pulled out a grenade and went to pull the plug.

"Are you crazy?! You'll blow up half the building! Let me." he said. He started firing shots into the shaft hoping to hit the wire. After a few moments his partner cursed and shot the elevator panel and it exploded with sparks. The elevator made a mechanical sound and abruptly stopped.

"Bingo." he said.

Jake and Clide were leaning up against the walls as the elevator came to the abrupt stop. They both looked around the room as the lights flickered. A quiet alarm went off throughout the elevator, filling the room with panic. Jake shot the panel and the alarm came to an abrupt stop. Just then the elevator suddenly became silent. After a long pause Clide quietly cursed under his breath.

"I told you so." he said to Jake. Jake slowly turned his head and looked at him sternly. He felt like knocking him upside the head, but he was much bigger, and this wasn't the time to get into a fist fight.

"This is just great, what are we going to do?" asked Clide. Jake paced back and forth through the small elevator in thought.

"Well?!" Clide blurted out.

"I don't know! Give me a minute!"

"I don't think we have a minute." he quickly remarked. Jake looked up and examined the roof tiling. He soon looked back down and stared blindly at the wall. Clide examined him, wondering what he was thinking.

"The roof." Jake said.

"Yes, it's above us, what of it?" he quickly replied. Jake put his arms up and punched one of the tiles out revealing the elevator shaft. Clide raised an eyebrow at the discovery and looked at Jake, finding he was already giving him a smart look.

"See? Being curious does help." he said. Clide muttered a few curses at him, and Jake took them as compliments. Jake hopped up onto the railing of the elevator and climbed through the hole in the ceiling.

"Don't break the damn thing!" he yelled. He just started to climb up the railing as gunshots went off and Jake tumbled through the hole in the roof and crashed onto the floor of the elevator. Clide jolted back up against the wall and held his gun by his face.

"Are you okay?!" he yelled. Jake rolled onto his back and climbed over to the wall sitting up against it, holding his back.

"Wonderful, how about you?" he replied in pain.

"Can you walk? Can you move?"

"Yes, I'm not a hundred years old!" he yelled back as he shakily climbed up the wall. He put his gun away and wiped some sweat off of his forehead. The gunshots raged on for a few more minutes until they stopped. The silence returned, but was stronger than ever. They both heard, and felt their hearts beating through their chests. Jake's mind ran like an Olympic runner. He could remember why he was here again, and why this security guard at a mall was following him around, and was now stuck with him.

Jake had been sent to discover what a symbol on a piece of fabric him and his research team had discovered at the island of Crete, south of Athina. It was simple fabric, probably once used as clothing, but it had a strange symbol on it that he had never seen before from any known civilizations. The closest thing he could gather, was early Egyptian, which led him to an Egyptian researcher in Vancouver, British Columbia. He had told Jake, that a government organization just outside of Vancouver had been researching similar symbols and objects, and they may have had some answers. They sure did, but not the answers he was looking for.

Clide had joined between stops. Jake visited a bar in between Vancouver and Oakridge (where they currently were). Jake was a large drinker, and he assumed Clide was too because he was ordering as many drinks as he was. They soon got to talking about their jobs, and families, and so on. Jake assumed that Clide was following him, but in fact Clide was working a cover shift for one of the security guards at Oakville Research Centre. Whether it was coincidence, or fate, they came in together, and they needed to get out together.

"Well, I guess we wait for the elevator to work again." said Jake. Clide nodded and they sat down against the wall opposite to each other. Thoughts raced through their mind of what would happen when the elevator started up again, if it did. Would they be caught and put in jail? Captured? Tortured? They weren't sure, and they weren't ready to find out.

After a half an hour or so, Clide decided to break the silence.

"Do you have kids?" he asked. Jake looked over at him and shook his head no. Clide nodded and looked back down.

"Do you?" asked Jake.

"No." he quickly replied. Jake nodded as well and they both sat there in silence again, patiently waiting for something to happen. They heard a clicking sound and a loud mechanical sound that echoed through the shaft and the emergency lights turned off as the elevator lights turned on and started going back down again.

"Finally!" Clide yelled. They both jumped to their feet and watched as the elevator got closer and closer to ground floor. The men chasing them surely had enough time to get down there, and call for reinforcements.

As it reached the ground floor they stepped beside each other and pointed their guns at the door waiting. Sweat was dripping off of them, and adrenaline was pumping through them like it was their blood. Both of them tried to look more manly than the other, trying not to shake or look frightened. Though they both knew, the look in their eyes showed fear.

The elevator door opened slowly and they both felt their trigger fingers sweating and shaking. Just as they were about to pull the trigger a man was seen standing at the door pointing his gun at them. Jake lowered his gun and let out a huge breath of fresh air. Clide looked over at him, and double took.

"What are you doing?!" he yelled.

"Don't worry he's a friend of mine." Jake replied. He walked out of the elevator toward the man and patted his shoulder thanking him. Clide lowered his gun and also let out a long breath and followed him.

Ancient Discovery - Part I

The research lab at NTRC (National Treasure Research of Canada) was especially quiet that night. Most of the researchers had gone home, and only a few had stayed later to work on some projects the Lead Officer had given them. The halls were empty and dark around this time in the night. As empty as the halls were, the faint noise of the janitor's floor polisher could be heard echoing throughout the facility. But the darkest and the quietest rooms of the facility, were the laboratories. Nobody were in these rooms, neither were they allowed in these rooms after 8:00 PM when the last lab supervisor went home for the night. Unless there was someone there that had access to the laboratories, they were strictly off limits.

Leonard Bean examined the ripped fabric very carefully, looking for any symbols, markings or strange oddities. The fabric had been found in southern Europe, somewhere on the island of Crete. The researchers had thought that the fabric was of Minoan descent, but the way it had been stitched and created was much more primitive than Minoan society. There was one symbol roughly stitched into the fabric, but the fabric was torn revealing only half of the symbol. It looked nothing of ancient Greece, or anything prehistoric. In simple terms, they had discovered something new.

The door behind him at the other side of the room opened and quietly shut, not alarming him. Himself and Quinton Elliot were the only two people in the facility at the time that had the key cards for the material laboratory. Leonard looked behind him anyways, knowing he had to be safe at all times in the facility, but sure enough it was his comrade. Quinton gave him an uncomfortable smile and approached the table, almost as if he were tiptoeing through the room.

"What have you found so far?" Quinton asked him. Leonard put down the fragile fabric gently on the examining table and moved his hand through his hair.

"Nothing. I just can't seem to find anything." he replied exhausting.

"What about that symbol?"

"It's of no origin I know," he explained, "it's not Greek, it's not Latin, it's not Minoan, and it's not even prehistoric…" he stopped himself and rubbed his eyes। Leonard leaned on the table with both hands, looking at the object in denial, but amazement.

"Could it be proof of another possible race or culture?" Quinton asked. Leonard looked over at him with an astonished look.

"Only one way to find out." he said. He quickly walked over to the phone and started dialing. Quinton took a few hesitant steps towards him.

"Who are you calling?" he asked suspiciously. Leonard spoke quietly one he phone for a few moments ignoring Quinton. Quinton crossed his arms and let out a deep sigh. Quinton wasn't a very patient man, and lately wasn't the best time to test his patience. This piece of fabric they found on Crete had been under research for three weeks now, and by then they usually already had it being mailed to a treasury or a museum.

Leonard put down the phone and turned towards Quinton but leaned on the table behind him. Quinton stepped towards him curiously and glared at him.

"I called Jake, okay?" Leonard said after a long pause. Quinton's eyes widened, and he became furious.

"You called that moron?!" he yelled. Quinton stood up straight up taking offense to the insult. Jake was one of his colleagues, and one of his best friends, and he wasn't about to stand for the insults.

"How dare you call him a moron? He's figured out more codes and hieroglyphics than any researcher in this facility." he said loudly.

"Do you remember the last time he ran security? What was the body count?"

"Look, I know he's, different but you have to trust him. He's the best we got."

"No, our supervisors, directors and officers are the best we got."

"Well, I'm not calling any of them, their all pricks." he said walking back to the table. Quinton followed him over and they both looked down at the mysterious fabric. Something about it was dark. Darker than anything they've ever seen.

It was raining around 11:30 PM when a black Ford Crown Victoria pulled into the NTRC parking lot right outside the front doors. The lights of the car dulled to nothing and the engine stopped. The car door opened and Jake quickly emerged from the car and ran into the building. The rain was very cold for late spring, and felt more like snow. The fog was still as thick as before, getting thicker by the minute, which made the lonely research facility seem alone in the dark, surrounded by a wall of fog.

Jake walked up to a desk with a security guard behind it. The young security guard, no older than 25 had short blond hair, and he had a bored smirk on his face. He wore a very nice security guard outfit, which was nothing like the regular mall cop outfit. He looked proud of his position, and proud of the gun in his holster, which no matter how much Jake knew the person, made him nervous.

He put his hand on a scanner and draw a tiny bit of blood from his fingertip to check his DNA and fingerprints to make sure it was actually Jake Delaware. Jake thought this was a very tedious process, and figured if the guard knew him it was alright. Jake was a very impatient person, and he had been known as a very short-fused man. Then it came to mind that the facility held top secret projects that if got to the public, could raise hell.

"Casey, you know me by now. Do I really have to do this man?" he asked sarcastically. Casey looked over at the computer and typed in Jake's access code.

30-DRTCH-32

Jake didn't mind the fact that he had to scan his hand for faulty print signatures that much, or even the fact that he had to have his finger pricked for a DNA sample, but remembering a 4 digit 5 letter code was going to far. Excluding the fact that it changed every month, or every time somebody was fired.

"Sorry Jake, it's standard. Otherwise I'd just leave the door open all night." he replied as he looked back at Jake with a smile. Jake patted his shoulder and walked to the door.

"Glad to see you care Case." he said as he walked through and the door shut behind him. Casey had worked there for about three months now, and was getting well acquainted with Jake. Casey originally worked a security guard job in British Columbia, but moved when a better job came up.

Jake continued down the hallway, as the arms from his leather jacket he wore 24/7 rubbed up against each other. His gun was held at his side, not proudly but cautiously. Jake was never happy to hurt or kill anybody, but if the situation regarded Jake's possible death, he'd use it. It was a 9mm handgun, and Jake thought it was one of the best guns ever made. Light, easy to shoot, and could pack a punch from close range or long distances, if you had good aim.

The hallways weren't lit from the ceiling like most facilities, but was lit from the floor. Two very long light bulbs followed along the bottom corners of the hallways, covered by a thick sheet of glass. The hallways were mostly sided with metal slabs, and every 10 feet were bullet proof windows revealing laboratories, research rooms, and office cubicles. NTRC was a very well known research facility, and had only been around for three and a half years now.

Jake stopped at a laboratory door and slid his key card through a small computer by the door and again, punched in his password. The door slid open and he walked into Quinton and Leonard waiting for him. He approached them with a tired smile, and the two responded the same.

"Jake, how are you?" asked Leonard. Jake shrugged and looked at Quinton. Quinton gave him a disgusted look but hid it with a small smile.

"Jake." he said with a nod.

"Quinton." he replied. Leonard could already feel the tension between them, and the room was silent. Jake and Quinton had gone a long way back, and it wasn't a very nice story. It was known amongst the opening team staff, and some three year employees.

Jake and Quinton had applied for the position of Secondary Officer, which gave them the right to pick their own crew and search for artifacts when enough evidence is gathered that there may be something. Quinton felt he was the more experienced of the two, and felt he should have got the position. Jake got the position, and was very proud of himself. Quinton confronted Jake soon after, and told him he wasn't the right man for the job. They had gotten into a large argument that ultimately ended with a fight. They were both suspended from the facility for two weeks. They returned and everything after that, was history.

"What do we got?" asked Jake. Leonard carefully lifted up the piece of fabric and gently handed it to Jake. Jake took it to the examining table and looked at it under the light. Quinton waited impatiently as Jake did so.

"Well? What is it?" Quinton asked, having as much disgust in his tone as ever. Jake turned his head to Quinton and back to Leonard.

"Well, it's nothing I've seen. It looks ancient Greek, or maybe even Roman." he replied.

"Could it be prehistoric?"

"It sure could be, the only thing I can think of is an unknown or unspoken of race."

"Nobody here studies unknown races."

"No, but Oakville Research Center in British Columbia does." he said proudly. Quinton rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, hating the idea.

"You love travelling, don't you?" he asked. Jake nodded and put the fabric in a small manilla envelope. He slid it into his inside jacket pocket and zipped it shut.

"I'm taking this for now, if you don't mind." he said as he walked out of the laboratory. Leonard chuckled and looked over at Quinton, receiving a terrible look. Leonard laughed even louder, but more sarcastically at Quinton.

"Shut up." Quinton said quietly.

END OF PART I