Ten. One to go.

I've been saying "level eleven" for so long that it had stopped meaning a real place — it was just the shape of later, the door at the end of the hall I kept walking toward. Tonight it's one level away. One. The next time that quiet click happens inside me, I'll be standing in front of the terminals I've only ever heard about: the vault ones, the ones that hand out the rarest things in the whole city.

Funny — I always thought I'd be sprinting at this part. Instead I keep stopping to look at it. Eight hundred-some pieces behind me now, every single one pried from terminals anybody could reach, and the ones almost nobody reaches are finally close enough to touch. Whatever comes out of those is what the Vitrine was always really for. The good shelf. The top one.

One more level. Then I find out what I've spent all this climbing for.