“Shades!” Max turned from his conversation and headed his way, Justin hanging back.
“There you are,” Kato said, then turned to Chase and George. “That’s the other guy.”
“Max… and Bandit. It really was you on the intercom.” Shades tried not to sigh too openly.
“You bastard,” Justin muttered, “what took you so long?”
“Well, excuse me,” Shades replied. “If you recall, I was the one who warned you not to take that place lightly.”
“Whatever,” Justin shrugged. At least now they wouldn’t have to go back into that demented maze for anyone; between Tranz-D and the Harken Building, he had had enough of such things to last him a lifetime.
Kato held both of her partners in her gaze for a moment, Chase and George both nodding.
“The important thing is that you made it,” Max told them, almost saying unlike Chad without thinking. In spite of his relief, he already felt an insatiable need to know more about all of their experiences inside the Building. “Both of you.”
Chase and George casually stepped to each side of the alleyway entrance.
“Now my friends are safe, and yours are, as well,” said Kato. “That means we beat the Harken Building. That’s one problem solved.”
“Now that that’s settled,” Shades replied, his imagination already running wild at what kinds of tales the others had to tell, “what say we get the hell away from this creepy building?”
“For once, I’m with you.” Justin told them. “I swear, if I ever see this place again, it’ll be all too soon.” Gesturing toward the street, “Come on, let’s get… going…”
He trailed off as he turned to face the Triad. Kato now had her power pistol out. Chase his sawed-off disrupter rifle. Even George had a power pistol, loaned from Chase’s Coat of Arms. And the two of them held the alley, barring them from the street, Kato covering them from behind.
“Hand over your Tri-Medals,” Kato commanded. “Now.”
Even as his two friends already caught up with what was going on, all Max could think was, At least now I see why Bandit doesn’t like her.
Author's Chapter Notes:
left the Building
Chapter End Notes:
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
-early draft: 1997
-notebook draft: Oct 31, 2004 – Oct 02, 2005
-Word-processed draft: March 25 – August 20, 2006
-additional revisions: 04/22/07; 02/16-9/09
The Harken Building really goes back. Though it didn't always go by the same handle. The Never-Ending Building made its first appearance when I was in middle school, in a story I was role-playing with my friends, when our characters from yet another world were stranded in the Sixth Dimension for a while before finding their way back to their own realm. Some things go all the way back to the first incarnation, including the Book of Fate, and the Flaming Ghost, while other things (such as "them") evolved between versions, and other things, including a talking painting and some really lame booby-traps, fell by the wayside.
There were a lot of different influences on this over the years, but most of the biggest ones for this version of the series started with an old building I worked as a graveyard shift custodian temp for a few years ago. The kind of things popped into my head overnight in a big empty building sent my scrambling for my notepad almost every break, and even sowed the seeds of future portions of the series. For those interested in the story of what goes on behind the keyboard, here's a guided tour of the Harken Building:
Shades' run-in with the Flaming Ghost, and the room with the Book of Fate were very much a character-relevant rebuild of the original, stairs, dead-end room, the Easy Way Out and all, while much of the rest of Shades' experience this time around were written from scratch from this version. The vacant cafeteria and the library he encountered are based on the elementary school I attended. A building, I might add, which no longer exists, having been torn down at least a decade ago to pave the way for a newer school building. In the older version, Shades also never found his way out into the alleyways or rooftops, either.
On the other hand, Max's tour had more of a mix of older version versus newer version elements. One of the biggest differences was a bit of a no-brainer: the older version had Max take a stairway up to multiple rooftops instead of down; I slapped my forehead at the simple realization of how much effective that one little change way. The same with Justin's, where up-vs-down became a recurring element in his adventure. Meanwhile, a lot of things didn't make the cut from the older version, starting with the talking painting that told him a potential exit from the Building, as well as an "old temple" area, bristling with enough traps for an Indiana Jones movie. And so derivative, they were left out of the revised version altogether. Yet the storyline for Part 10 involved Max's ankle being injured (originally from falling into one of those traps), and what I came up with instead was an expanded version of Max's journey through the "outdoors" section, and a showdown with Them, enemies previously only faced by Chase in the older version. The Japanese Garden section was an entirely new environment, though, a result of going back and further developing the backstory of his father and his friends tangling with the Building many years before.
Justin's story got expanded considerably, as the main portion of it originally involved the hangar and underground tunnels (as well as a cheesy motorcycle chase that ended with the WTF Moment of Justin being the only character to ever escape from the Building via a manhole), now including the freight elevator and parking garage. The skybridge was inspired by the ones that I recall seeing at a very vertically oriented mall in Anchorage, Alaska, where I lived back then. The hallways and "jail-barred" storage areas were directly inspired by the basement level of the building I used to clean, while the frozen storage areas were a creepy leftover of the walk-in freezers from when I worked fast food in school. The last part, with the industrial vats and such, was actually originally from Kato's account, but it seemed to fit better with Justin's tour.
About the only two things left from George's original walkthru were the hi-tech facility and the carnival, though in the oldest version had the carnival still active, populated by phantom people that just didn't seem to fit with the Building, and were finally cast aside to make the setting flow. Tuns out the abandoned version worked out better anyway, in terms of both plot and atmosphere. The last part, though, with the forklift, came from the forklift from the basement level of the building I worked, and how whoever operated it during the day always seemed to "hide" it around the corner when they parked it...
Chase's creepy tour, on the other hand, had substantially fewer changes made to the actual main events, with the biggest being the absence of a bunch of stupid traps rigged in the Weapon Museum portion. The office cubicles got their idea from one of my earliest childhood memories, of my parents helping to clean an office complex when I was really little, of both of them going deep into this dark labyrinth of dividers that I was too scared to set foot in. Even "They" were adapted from an earlier version of the Building from my childhood role-playing stories. The outdoor region was inspired by the initial background for the Johnny Cage vs Scorpion fight in Mortal Kombat, of all things.
Kato's take started out the same way as the old version, with the furniture galleries, then quickly switched gears with the elevator. In the oldest version, she simply boarded it as a way to get from Point A to Point B, whereas, after working in a spooky old building, with a stubborn old elevator that required a key to reach the top level, I realized that it would be a crime to pass up that scenario. By the same token, as her story originally involved the vats that later became part of Justin's storyline (except that her version involved actually falling into a tank of water, and and opening a ridiculous door that "spilled" her out into the alleyway...), she ended up finishing her trip in new territory, especially the Abandoned Wing, based on both the abandoned section of the second floor of the building I worked at, as well as the completely deserted fourth floor of a building I used to visit a lot for appointments when I was in grade school.
There were a host of the various inspirations, both major and minor, but these are some of the most significant ones. A little trivia: one of the more subtle ones, though, is the music of Akira Yamaoka, as I transcribed the word-processed version of this story listening to the soundtracks for Silent Hill 1-3. Every step of the way, I cast my mind back to that building, and the overall feel of it when crafting the atmosphere for the Harken Building.
-early draft: 1997
-notebook draft: Oct 31, 2004 – Oct 02, 2005
-Word-processed draft: March 25 – August 20, 2006
-additional revisions: 04/22/07; 02/16-9/09
The Harken Building really goes back. Though it didn't always go by the same handle. The Never-Ending Building made its first appearance when I was in middle school, in a story I was role-playing with my friends, when our characters from yet another world were stranded in the Sixth Dimension for a while before finding their way back to their own realm. Some things go all the way back to the first incarnation, including the Book of Fate, and the Flaming Ghost, while other things (such as "them") evolved between versions, and other things, including a talking painting and some really lame booby-traps, fell by the wayside.
There were a lot of different influences on this over the years, but most of the biggest ones for this version of the series started with an old building I worked as a graveyard shift custodian temp for a few years ago. The kind of things popped into my head overnight in a big empty building sent my scrambling for my notepad almost every break, and even sowed the seeds of future portions of the series. For those interested in the story of what goes on behind the keyboard, here's a guided tour of the Harken Building:
Shades' run-in with the Flaming Ghost, and the room with the Book of Fate were very much a character-relevant rebuild of the original, stairs, dead-end room, the Easy Way Out and all, while much of the rest of Shades' experience this time around were written from scratch from this version. The vacant cafeteria and the library he encountered are based on the elementary school I attended. A building, I might add, which no longer exists, having been torn down at least a decade ago to pave the way for a newer school building. In the older version, Shades also never found his way out into the alleyways or rooftops, either.
On the other hand, Max's tour had more of a mix of older version versus newer version elements. One of the biggest differences was a bit of a no-brainer: the older version had Max take a stairway up to multiple rooftops instead of down; I slapped my forehead at the simple realization of how much effective that one little change way. The same with Justin's, where up-vs-down became a recurring element in his adventure. Meanwhile, a lot of things didn't make the cut from the older version, starting with the talking painting that told him a potential exit from the Building, as well as an "old temple" area, bristling with enough traps for an Indiana Jones movie. And so derivative, they were left out of the revised version altogether. Yet the storyline for Part 10 involved Max's ankle being injured (originally from falling into one of those traps), and what I came up with instead was an expanded version of Max's journey through the "outdoors" section, and a showdown with Them, enemies previously only faced by Chase in the older version. The Japanese Garden section was an entirely new environment, though, a result of going back and further developing the backstory of his father and his friends tangling with the Building many years before.
Justin's story got expanded considerably, as the main portion of it originally involved the hangar and underground tunnels (as well as a cheesy motorcycle chase that ended with the WTF Moment of Justin being the only character to ever escape from the Building via a manhole), now including the freight elevator and parking garage. The skybridge was inspired by the ones that I recall seeing at a very vertically oriented mall in Anchorage, Alaska, where I lived back then. The hallways and "jail-barred" storage areas were directly inspired by the basement level of the building I used to clean, while the frozen storage areas were a creepy leftover of the walk-in freezers from when I worked fast food in school. The last part, with the industrial vats and such, was actually originally from Kato's account, but it seemed to fit better with Justin's tour.
About the only two things left from George's original walkthru were the hi-tech facility and the carnival, though in the oldest version had the carnival still active, populated by phantom people that just didn't seem to fit with the Building, and were finally cast aside to make the setting flow. Tuns out the abandoned version worked out better anyway, in terms of both plot and atmosphere. The last part, though, with the forklift, came from the forklift from the basement level of the building I worked, and how whoever operated it during the day always seemed to "hide" it around the corner when they parked it...
Chase's creepy tour, on the other hand, had substantially fewer changes made to the actual main events, with the biggest being the absence of a bunch of stupid traps rigged in the Weapon Museum portion. The office cubicles got their idea from one of my earliest childhood memories, of my parents helping to clean an office complex when I was really little, of both of them going deep into this dark labyrinth of dividers that I was too scared to set foot in. Even "They" were adapted from an earlier version of the Building from my childhood role-playing stories. The outdoor region was inspired by the initial background for the Johnny Cage vs Scorpion fight in Mortal Kombat, of all things.
Kato's take started out the same way as the old version, with the furniture galleries, then quickly switched gears with the elevator. In the oldest version, she simply boarded it as a way to get from Point A to Point B, whereas, after working in a spooky old building, with a stubborn old elevator that required a key to reach the top level, I realized that it would be a crime to pass up that scenario. By the same token, as her story originally involved the vats that later became part of Justin's storyline (except that her version involved actually falling into a tank of water, and and opening a ridiculous door that "spilled" her out into the alleyway...), she ended up finishing her trip in new territory, especially the Abandoned Wing, based on both the abandoned section of the second floor of the building I worked at, as well as the completely deserted fourth floor of a building I used to visit a lot for appointments when I was in grade school.
There were a host of the various inspirations, both major and minor, but these are some of the most significant ones. A little trivia: one of the more subtle ones, though, is the music of Akira Yamaoka, as I transcribed the word-processed version of this story listening to the soundtracks for Silent Hill 1-3. Every step of the way, I cast my mind back to that building, and the overall feel of it when crafting the atmosphere for the Harken Building.
