Sonia could always tell when someone was a new resident. They’d ask about the third elevator.
“Is that one broken?”
“Yeah,” someone else would say. “It’s never worked.”
There’d be a grin, or some comment along the lines of “at least they’re not down to one this week.”
The Parkland in River Oaks was clean and stark and marble. Nineteen floors of apartments and amenities, a pool, a parking garage, and a twenty-four hour concierge. The elevator bank was set into the wall just before you got to the mail room.
Elevator Three did nothing. The floor display was dark. The brushed metal doors never opened.
Sometimes someone would send a note to management. Management would send a blast out on the residents’ app.
It has been brought to our attention that Elevator Three is out of service.
We are currently coordinating with our elevator vendor.
We appreciate your patience while we investigate.
Then nothing else would happen.
Every couple of months one of the other elevators would fail. Groups would mill around the elevator bank complaining. Those repairs were always quick, everything fixed in a day.
Six months in, that new resident would be the one telling someone else how it never worked.
Sonia had a nice one-bedroom on the eleventh floor. The balcony looked out over the pool. She had a straggly herb garden out there which she remembered to water just often enough for it to stay alive. She’d been at The Parkland for nine months. She liked it.
It was Thursday evening in July, when the air outside was so hot it felt like someone was putting a hand over your mouth. The pressure was low, with the storm threatening all afternoon and never quite arriving. Even the storm grid monitoring stations had been promising rain, blinking warnings in the sky.
She’d popped out for coffee round the corner. The amenities floor had a coffee maker, but it couldn’t do a decent latte. The concierge had stepped away from the desk.
Elevator One was on six. Elevator Two was on sixteen. She pressed the button and looked down at her phone.
The door chimed.
Not One or Two. Sonia turned to look.
Elevator Three stood open.
“Well,” she said. “Finally.”
She stepped inside. Felt like it was a small highlight of the day.
The doors closed while she was struggling for her keys. She tapped her fob against the reader. No beep and no light. She rubbed it on the sensor for a couple of extra seconds.
Nothing.
She pressed eleven. The button stayed dark.
She sighed.
Pressed G. Pressed the door open button.
Nothing.
“Oh, come on.”
The elevator had the same smell as if she was doing an early evening run by the bayou. Dried mud.
The destination floor display flickered on.
FACILITIES
One word in red LED. There was no “Facilities” button on the keypad.
The elevator rose. Nothing special. Past five, past the amenities floor on nine, past eleven.
Past nineteen.
And then it stopped.
The doors opened onto a corridor, not an elevator bay. There was no Elevator One or Elevator Two.
It wasn’t really a floor.
There was a narrow service passage running left and right, and exposed pipes above her. The ceiling was low. Sonia wasn’t tall, and the ductwork seemed to be pressing toward the top of her head. The lighting was harsh.
It was cold.
Sonia tried to press G again. Tried the alarm button, and the emergency line.
Nothing.
The doors stayed open.
She stepped out, and immediately the elevator doors began to close. She tried to put out her foot, and the door’s rubber edge touched her shoe and kept going. A steady pressure, she pulled her foot back
The doors shut.
Opposite the elevator, on the wall, black paint stenciled the floor name:
FACILITIES
And underneath that was some kind of directory, in a plastic frame.
ACCESS
WATER
WASTE
RESIDENT COMMUNICATIONS
PACKAGES
COMPLAINTS
OCCUPANCY DISPUTES
INCIDENTS
ELEVATOR
Sonia called the leasing office. The line picked up immediately.
“Thank you for calling The Parkland at River Oaks,” a recorded voice said. “For leasing information press one. For resident services, press two. For concierge, press three. For maintenance, press four. “
She pressed four.
“We’re sorry,” the same voice said. “We cannot complete your request because you are already logged as in an active service event.”
The line hung up.
Somewhere down the corridor, she thought she heard a printer starting.
Sonia started to walk down the corridor.
The door marked WATER felt colder. Damp. Behind PACKAGE FLOW she heard a beeping. Behind RESIDENT COMMUNICATIONS she could hear a woman’s voice saying “We appreciate your patience.” And then again, at a lower volume. Over and over.
None of the doors budged when she tried the handle.
She kept walking, and halfway down the corridor the walls changed.
There was an old waterline six inches above the floor. It was brown and straight as a ruler. There was another one at knee height. Old tape clung to the pipes on the walls, peeling.
She reached the door marked COMPLAINTS. There was a kiosk screen mounted in the wall, at face height. Bolted in. Sharp corners and a stylus attached by a thin chain.
Welcome, Resident
Please confirm unit.
Sonia stared at it. The screen waited.
She went back to the elevator and tried the call button. It was dead.
She tried her phone again. Same menu and same voice. She tried the concierge this time.
“We cannot complete your request because you are already logged as in an active service event.”
She tried calling her boyfriend.
“Thank you for calling The Parkland at River Oaks...”
Sonia’s mouth went dry.
She turned back to the screen and tapped it with the stylus.
1-1-1-4
The screen changed.
Thank you Sonia Callis
Request Type: AccessAffected Area: ResidentialStatus: Unresolved
“I didn’t make any request,” said Sonia.
She heard a muffled yell from behind the next door down. It was labeled OCCUPANCY DISPUTES.
“Hello?” she called.
No answer.
The kiosk screen refreshed.
Elevator 3 not available for residential use.
Confirm condition:
1. Service interruption.2. No service interruption.
Sonia touched SERVICE INTERRUPTION.
The screen went black.
Then the fluorescent lights clicked off.
Not all at once. One by one, down the corridor.
Pitch black.
The building felt loud. She could hear dogs barking through the vents. Someone crying. The elevators moving, their cables creaking.
The kiosk screen came on again.
No service interruption found.
Elevator 3 not available for residential use.
Confirm condition:
1. Service interruption.2. No service interruption.
Her phone buzzed in her hand, and she almost dropped it.
A notification from the building app.
Thank you for contacting The Parkland at River Oaks. We were unable to complete the requested repair because the resident was not available for access. This ticket will be closed.
It was dated tomorrow.
The corridor smelled of bayou mud too. And she noticed the thinnest film of water running along the slope of the floor. It touched the toe of her shoe.
In the dark, from behind the doors deeper into the corridor, she heard voices speaking over each other.
“Is that one broken?”
“Has it ever worked?”
“I put in a ticket.”
“Some kind of delay.”
“I think they’re waiting on a part.”
Confirm condition:
She pressed NO SERVICE INTERRUPTION.
The corridor went silent.
Confirm acknowledgment:
Elevator 3 is not available for residential use.
1: I acknowledge.
She touched it.
The lights flickered back on. She heard a chime.
The elevator was behind her. Its doors were open.
She didn’t quite run to it.
The panel lit without her fob. G glowed.
When the doors opened, she was in the lobby.
Elevator One opened and a man in running shorts came out, dragging a small dog by its leash.
She checked her phone.
There was no notification. No call history. No ticket.
Sonia didn’t sleep well for three nights. But on the fourth she told herself that she’d just been tired. She decided to stop looking at Elevator Three when she passed it.
A week later she was waiting in the lobby with her mail, balancing a large package against her side. There was a young man with two boxes and a mattress bag. She didn’t recognize him.
He pressed the button.
“Is this one broken?” he asked, gesturing toward Elevator Three with his elbow.
Sonia saw the camera above the elevator bank move. It was very slight.
She thought she heard a soft chime.
She shifted her package higher on her hip.
“I don’t think it’s ever worked,” she said.
Elevator One arrived.
The man gave Sonia a grin as he stepped inside.
A story from the Static Drift universe.