I got a job watching an elevator.

I was looking for a part-time job while I’m still in school, and a help wanted add caught my eye.<br><br>Elevator operator. Twelve hours a day, three days a week. Eighteen dollars an hour.<br><br>I jumped on it. It was the highest paying job on any of the lists I was looking through, and it didn’t even require any training. Just watch the elevator, and make sure nothing went wrong.<br><br>I was a little uneasy when I went for the interview. Something about the job just didn’t feel right. But the building manager put me at ease. He was a friendly guy, with a round face and a thick beard. He kind of reminded me of Santa Claus, except younger and skinnier. My mom always said that I should trust my first impressions, so I felt comfortable enough with him to trust my first impression of him.<br><br>The interview itself was very straightforward. He explained that all I had to do was watch the elevator, make sure nothing went wrong, and call security if I saw anything out of the ordinary. It was only a three-month gig, he explained. The company that occupied most of the floors in the building wanted to test out a new elevator system, and this building was the only place that they were testing this particular system. They wanted the elevator watched at all times, but they didn’t want that responsibility on the shoulders of security.<br><br>I also had to sign a few non-disclosure agreements. He explained that I wasn’t allowed to talk about the elevator, itself, or the company in the building that was behind the new elevator. It didn’t seem like a big deal to me. I’ve signed those agreements before when I was doing some data entry for a company over the summer. It was the same kind of thing as before. I had to agree that I wouldn’t discuss the elevator with anyone, that I wouldn’t do any research on the elevator, and that if I saw something strange, I’d only report it to the people they specified. I figured the company just had some things in there that they didn’t want the public to know about, and that was fine with me. <br><br>So I took the job, and I’ve been there a week now. <br><br>The job is about as straightforward as it sounded, and I’ve been very bored. They set up a desk for me in the middle of the first floor, and they placed a couple monitors on top of the desk. The camera on one monitor is above the elevator, and the camera on the other monitor is inside the elevator. I’m alone at night, except for one of the other elevator watchers across the hall from me. <br><br>Other than that, it’s just the various people that work in the building, and every once in a while I see one of the people who actually live in the building. <br><br>It’s been a real yawner, the whole week. The only thing that was even remotely interesting was when one of the people who live in the building accidentally pushed the wrong elevator button, and she ended up in the service elevator that I was watching. <br><br>Apparently, she didn’t realize that the elevator wasn’t stopping on her floor (which was all the way at the top), because she didn’t look at the display above the door. Instead, she looked at her phone, and she got off when the display said 43. The problem is, 43 isn’t the number of the floor. It’s the number they gave to the floor in the display inside the elevator. The display above the door has a *B* on it instead of a number. <br><br>I guess it’s kind of confusing, but the point is that she ended up walking into an empty floor just a few stories above the bottom. <br><br>It was kind of funny that she looked more scared than anything else. I guess she realized something was wrong as soon as she looked around at all the empty offices. <br><br>This was all the excitement I’d had until last night. <br><br>Last night, I wasn’t alone in the building. Aside from the other elevator watcher, there was a couple people working late. <br><br>That was pretty normal, though, and it was nothing like what happened last night. <br><br>Pretty much as soon as my shift started, the elevator in front of me started beeping. The monitor above my desk wasn’t even turned on yet. <br><br>I looked and saw a Group Chat message had popped up on the screen. <br><br>I had no idea that this screen existed. It was above all the controls for the elevator. <br><br>The message read: **Compression complete. Ready for transport.**<br><br>The first part of the message disappeared after a few seconds, but the second part stayed. <br><br>I texted the number they gave me for support, and they said that everything was fine. <br><br>Aside from that one message, the rest of my shift was boring and uneventful. <br><br>That is, until I saw it. <br><br>Right at the end of my shift, I saw a man in a black suit walk through the lobby and into the elevators. He walked past the elevator I was watching, and stepped into the other one across from it. <br><br>I felt a shiver run down my spine as I watched him step inside. <br><br>The message popped up on the screen again as soon as the door closed. **Compression complete. Ready for transport.**<br><br>I texted the number for support again, but they told me everything was fine. <br><br>I still had a bad feeling, though. <br><br>I thought about it all day today. The man in the black suit riding the elevator, and the message about compression and transport. <br><br>I’ve been thinking about that all day today, and I just can’t stop wondering what transport actually means. <br><br>I don’t know what they’re doing up there, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. <br><br>I felt like I had to know. <br><br>So tonight, when my shift started and the Group Chat screen lit up with the message from before, I decided to take matters into my own hands. <br><br>I stepped into the elevator, and I hit the button for B (the display above the door lit up with a “43”). <br><br>The doors closed, and I just waited. <br><br>Nothing happened. <br><br>I hit the buttons a few times, and I even tried to manually open the doors (which didn’t work), but nothing happened. <br><br>Finally, the doors opened back up. <br><br>The screen was still lit up, and I realized that the message had changed. <br><br>**Compression complete. Ready for transport. Unauthorized rider detected. Compression interrupted. Please exit and try to compress again.**<br><br>That’s it.