Accuser

Metallic letters Move Fast to Break shined in the rays of the rising sun as Mr. Smith dragged his feet into the fifty story building. Cold air conditioning blasted the businessman as he wearily lifted his finger to touch the elevator button changing its glowing outline from red to green. Fully-fitted business suits with shadows of humans fit inside them shifted around Mr. Smith busy with whatever tasks the morning called for. All the workers were uninterested in who Mr. Smith was or what he did.

An intercom sounded off its usual message from the ceiling unnoticed by everyone below. Don’t forget to download our new app “Face History”! Identify the people you see and never forgot a name again! the intercom enthusiastically told no one.

Beeps echoed from the three story lobby and descended into the bustling crowd causing Mr. Smith to look up as if his willpower alone would make the elevator move faster. He took a brief moment to roll up his gray sleeve revealing a metallic gray watch with a white face and gray numbers. The watch read five minutes to eight which was more than enough time to make it to the forty-eighth floor assuming not too many people had to use the elevator. The doors in front of Mr. Smith opened revealing a sleek interior half covered with glass on three walls, white LED lights illuminating the glass, and more orange-red LED’s above reflecting the hour of the day. He stepped inside the empty elevator and pushed the silver button with a red halo underneath the number 48. A new green glow surrounded the button. The doors closed silently as Mr. Smith watched a lady struggle to get through the crowd to step into the elevator. She didn’t make.

As soon as the doors sealed everything went quiet as the chatter of the lobby grew further and further away. Mr. Smith faced the three mirrors observing their subtle differences distorting his face in one way or another. One was warped towards the center that shrunk his face. Another was tilted ever-so-slightly down from people leaning on it making him appear shorter. The last mirror showed his true face glowering back at him. Any person might easily mistaken him for another man if they were looking at these imperfect images. Lifting his wrist up to eye level, the gray minute hand was just a sliver away from hitting the 12. He would be just on time.

The doors of the elevator opened to the forty-eighth floor revealing a waterfall covering the back wall of the lobby. This display too reflected an imperfect image of anyone that walked by the falling water that never quite formed a flat surface. A desk sat to the right occupied by a woman who busily typed not bothering to look up. Mr. Smith stepped out of the elevator which immediately closed in a hurry to help the next person nearly running late for work. Continuing to his job, Mr. Smith strolled past the front desk and the person occupying it. Neither attempted to greet each other as he made his way to the main office, ready to sit down at his computer. Sweat already stained his suit and dried in the cool air. The city skyline sat behind his desk showing a sun that had risen behind the overcast sky.

The office chair creaked under his weight as the monitor lit up. Code popped up on the computer screen from a file named “Facial Recognition”. The office hummed from computer fans as each programmer viciously battled with deadlines. Not a word was spoken as invisible messages flew from computer to computer collectively broadcasting messages to the whole floor in milliseconds with responses only seconds later. Throughout the day the typing never stopped. Even as the sun set the office stayed bright from blue light emanating off the monitors. Down below on the street it was possible to see the one floor surrounded by all other floors that were pitch black. Slowly as evening turned to night programmers turned off their computers and picked up their briefcases pretending to go home for longer than they stayed at the office.

Despite the floor being almost empty, Mr. Smith continued to work on his project. The police department had requested a more up to date interface for their facial recognition software and the deadline was tonight. There was no way Mr. Smith was letting a deadline get in the way of his bonus. The moon rose past the office and had nearly fallen down back on the other side by the time he finished his work. With a last couple of clicks, the monitor turned off leaving the floor devoid of anything but moonlight. Mr. Smith lifted up his brief case and exited the office into a very dim lobby. At the end was a silver button with a red halo waiting to be pushed to summon the elevator. With the slight tap of a finger the red halo turned green and the elevator appeared faster than normal.

As the doors slid open the interior of the elevator glowed blue from the blue LED’s shining at the ceiling. Mr. Smith shuffled his way into the elevator as his reflections stared back at him. His hand automatically hit a silver button to change floors causing the elevator doors to close. Rather than moving down, the elevator started moving up. The gray watch on Mr. Smith’s wrist had the hour hand pointing at the 2. It was quite unlikely someone on the floor above had to stay even later than him. In the top right corner of the elevator next to the door a monitor showed the number 1220. In disbelief, Mr. Smith rubbed his eyes only to see the numbers unchanged. He bent over to view the numbers above all the silver buttons lining the wall to the right of the elevator door. Each button had numbers in the thousands. Someone must be playing a prank, thought Mr. Smith. These numbers were supposed to represent floors, not whatever the hell this was. Looking up at the last number, it appeared that the floors stopped at 1225.

As the monitor in the corner switched from number 1220 to 1221 the ceiling LED’s started flashing blue and red. A sudden thrust pushed Mr. Smith to the ground and the elevator sped upwards. It was impossible that the elevator could go up much further without hitting the top of the building, yet it kept speeding up. Ceiling lights grew brighter still flashing red and blue as a siren sounded far off in the distance. The monitor showed 1222. Mr. Smith pushed himself off the ground and tried to hit the red button to activate the emergency stop but nothing happened. Panic shot up Mr. Smith’s spine. He found it quite hard to breath suddenly becoming quite claustrophobic. The elevator must of had a mind of its own. It wouldn’t listen. He desperately started pushing buttons at random, but nothing made the elevator slow down. What am I doing wrong? he asked.

Slowly the siren sounding off the distance was getting closer and closer. Eventually the siren sounded so loud it felt as if a speaker was sitting on Mr. Smith’s ear. Without warning, it stopped. The monitor switched to number 1223. A thud sounded from outside disturbing the silence. Mr. Smith looked around the mirrors which no longer reflected his face, but weird distortions warped presumably by the speed of the elevator. Radio chatter suddenly filled the space at random intervals. The monitor glowed with the number 1224.

For what felt like hours, but what was only seconds, radio chatter continued becoming overwhelmingly louder and louder each time it started. Another thud sounded from the back wall, this time it sounded aggressive. The elevator shot up faster than it had ever moved before slamming Mr. Smith to the ground. He was stuck on his back staring at the red and blue flashing LED’s progressively getting brighter. He was unable to get up pressed down by the massive acceleration. A gunshot sounded in the distance as the monitor changed. It read “1225 kills, 0 faces recognized correctly”.