Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. Crackling static flickers in my headphones
are wavering hiss that's always there, stitched into the noise
floor between my words. If you're listening to this, you
know I don't filter too much. It's the way I
started in my podcasts, at least before everything turns strange.
This isn't what I planned on recording to night. I
usually close shot by midnight and crash at my desk,
but some nights the city wouldn't let me. It was
just past eleven twenty when I heard the faint, metallic
slide outside my glass office door. Blue streets stuffing the
grimmest temp agency on the edge of Mitenkos quiet after
eight p m. So even late, every footfall fee is intrusive.
I waited, half listening, thinking maybe the accountant from Dancers
left another note about the thermostat, or that the janitor
had snuck up to empty bins. Instead, nothing, just the
fading hum of distant traffic, forescent lights buzzing with fatigue,
and the shuffle thump of someone or something trudging away.
Another five minutes and I would have ignored it, but
my curiosity got the better of me. I opened the door.
I didn't see anyone of just a slip of darkness
vanishing around the corner, too fast for me to catch
a glimpse. At my feet, though waited a think. Black
binder sealed in a plastic sleeve, as if to weather
the night, the kind management uses for h R policies, neat, dustless,
out of place. I hesitated, the way you do when
you send someone else's urgency lingering. I reached down, and
just before picking it up, realized the sleeve was not enclosed,
almost paranoid in its thoroughness. It wasn't warm, but the
thing nearly vibrated with potential. I caught the trace of
cologne or after ship clinging to it to shop old
fashion scent. My pulse quickened for reasons I couldn't pin
down Inside the sleeve. The binder was immaculate, jet black cover,
fresh plastic rings. First tap opened under a page with
a grood of tians dates, clock hands drawn with obsessive neediness.
The second page was clipped with the blue postit and
lipping hurried ink. I saw, do not file confidential if
they ask deny below, photocopid forms maintenance logs for the
entire building, level lists, vi Drollsignin's detailed elevator repetickets. Every
line cross referenced with stamps, signatures, and in the margin
are notations in un familiar handwriting. Some reference specific grooms
or conduits that didn't match the actual floor lay outside scene.
A few locks highlighted whole time periods where access denied systems,
loop and cryptic references to maintenance work above, but none
of the contractor initials matched anyone I recognized. Toward the end,
a section of rough diagrams, a crude hand drawn map
of the upper floors with auditas and blank spaces. The
sixth floor, which should have been a flat concrete paddis
storage area as I'd been told up here, with a
series of excess and no marks and tangled lines running through.
One sticky note stuck out at the coroner, almost childlike one.
Lights flickered again, heard her voice by a stoutwell. Second
shift said it was empty, but it's never empty. The
handwriting ran crooked, as if the writer was being jostled.
The last page broke the methodical rhythm. If you want dancers,
watch the sixth floor. After TUREM, don't believe the sign
in locks there was a ded tonight well. I thought
either someone was playing games with me or they were
desperate for a scared for me to see it is
before anybody else. I coaked my head out into the
hole again silence. But as I gazed up the stairwells
open core five floors of blank black rectangles gaped above,
and far above behind a grimy paine that belonged to
the six floor supposity peddlocked and dead, I saw a faint,
pulsing sliver of light. It wasn't the steady forescent of
a cleaning crew, and it was the passing cause wash
if flicker. A nervous morse curd feeble, but determined it
was eleven forty. What kind of building locks away a
whole floor nobody uses? Then let secerts drift down in
binder's leg bait, and I thought, who decides to leave
a sign for whoever still awake enough to look? I
should have called security. I should have tossed the binder
in the manager's in books, left it for their morning headaches.
But as I found through the pages once more diagrams clippings,
half ray scribbles that made my skin prickle. I couldn't
help it. I pressed record this is of Kessler. Blue
Street Tower, second floor received anonymous delivery confidential logs keys
to nothing but a warning there's a light burning on
the sixth floor. I'm going to find out whose watching whom.
Most nights I don't scare easily. To night, I felt
something beyond curiosity take hold. It was as if the
building itself had nudged me toward that binder, toward whatever
was waiting above. Some mysteries are borne from coincidence. Some
I learned that night, are cultivated. Being a reporter is
a career built on skepticism and in complete coffee. My
office is a closer of USB Mike's caffeine soak notes
and the town of coal takeout. I never plan on
like zitt Echo, the constant, low grade paranoia that comes
with covering the city's fraying edges. Blue Street was my
first tempt job, but lately it felt like it might
be my last. The next morning, I arrived after an
iris leap, bind her hidden in my back back and
tuck myself into my usual corner booth at hoch Cockfay.
My playlist overflowed with previous episodes, superstitions in city housing,
haunted alleyways, the rumer economy. My voice scratched the opening
script episode one hundred nine, The Modern Myths of Midtown.
But even with my daily rituals chatting with Melt, my producer,
and tossing questions to the tenants, who forced cheer? Who
I was chewing on the contents of that binder I spent?
I was flipping it in my lap beneath the table,
shuffling die on ground's back and forth in case smell
snuck a glance over my shoulder. By noon, I'd swat
my morning routine for a surplus of suspicion. I had
a list of the buildings regulars, and for cover, I
pretended to gather their thoughts about office upgrades for a
segment that was never going to air. Tony, a resident
accountant and two B met me by the elevator with
his usual nervous energy. He fidgeted with his tie, glancing
at the ceiling slickering bulbs at night. You'll hear the pipe, sure,
he whispered, voice, cracking pole place groans, old bones. You
know sometimes I think I hear some one on the steps,
but the only one around is the janitor. Don't print that,
o K, he paused. We had paperwork loss payroll one time,
just varnished, then popped up days later, but numbers were off.
Management blamed me. I scribbled notes I pretended were for
building feature stores. He shifted from fit to foot, finally
darting down the hall as if afraid of being overheard.
The next was Maia from Bridle Studio Chugee. She always
kept her space bright with imitation penis and the faint
hum of classical music. I mentioned the after ires room
is just abroad. Gosts. No, no, she said, waving her
hand with lift sixteen fingers. It's just city stories. Some
years ago I heard attendant had a bad fall on
the stairs. But that's every building, isn't it the truth?
The six floor isn't haunted, it's never open. I don't
less staff up there, but after sunset I lock up.
People get strange ideas at night. She smiled, but I
could see the tension drawing lines by her eyes at
the door keys jangling. She hesitated, glancing toward the stairwell.
In moments between interviews. I wandered the hall, taking in
the musty scent that seemed to waft from all day
track and shut at offices. The paint peeled in thin calicues,
and every step echoed n naturally, as if the place
was built for more tenants than it had eva housed.
Half the mail boxes on the grand floor were empty,
and the tiles at the back entrance wap where water
had once seeped in. Later, in the record's room, I
poured over the history of Blue Street Tower. The original
blueprints were tucked behind glass at the front desk and
naive goldleaf promise of prosperity. The building rose in the fifties,
but a failed attempt at modern expansion a decade go
left the six four unfinished. Lawsuit followed structural errors cost
overran's one contractor, who sued for our hostile conditions. The
owners tried to lease the six, but nothing stuck. Insurance
flight did as hazardous, so they locked it behind a
signed off Crimson placard, but the elevator still listed six
as an option, had a tape over the button. No
mention of sealed corridors in public records. I've covered ghost
stors for clicks before, but I never trusted them. Every
fountom roomor boiled down to book keeping errors or board
night's staff who wanted an hour off still by late
after Nima in books, Pinketon address with a string of
random characters, no signature. Did you get the binder? Do
not trust management? The subject line was in all CAP's warning.
I stared at the email, hands resting on the keyboard,
careful not to reply. The building's shadow loomed larger. Now.
I wondered if My's brisk dismissal or Tony's nervous glances
were performances, or if they two felt something watching from above.
I placed the binder on the table, double checking each
page as if I'd missed a key already. Before packing up,
I pulled my foreign and scanned the six floors windows
from the sidewalk. Nothing just dirty pains, dull in the
luring sun, reflecting my own worrid face. When you spend
years debunking stories, he developed routines to compartmentalize fear, but
the memory of the flickering light the bind is careful.
Anonymity and the six certainty that someone had chosen me
deliberately kept nudging at the edges of my resolve back
in my office, afflicked in the recorder. Something is wrong here.
Someone inside the building wants this to come out, and
I am beginning to think it isn't a simple girse
they're afraid of. Following night, I decided to test the
boundaries of my paranoia. Sleep as a wash. My nerves
perk every time a sea train rattled beneath the avenue.
A little after midnight, I let myself into Blue Street
Tower with Tony spare pass card back. I cloated with
a bath at Sony camcorder and my favorite Field audio recorder.
The elevator was already locked tenants after IROs so. I
took the stairs too at a time, pausing on the
fifth landing like spurning with adrenaline, and was giving an
equal measure. From there, I crouched next to the stairwell door,
both hands pressed to the cool metal. This spot had
a perfec few den the spine of the building, the
lobbis paltry potted palm, the revolving glass doors, the checkerboard
floor glimmering with sodium light from the street. The holes
were so empty that every distant drip sounded orchestrated. I
checked my watch two zevanhum time drag. I tried to
steady my breathing ears, attuned to mechanical rhythms on camera,
nothing unusual, a few des modes drifting in front of
the lens. The orange glare of the exit signed reflecting weirdly.
But as two thirteen tipped over, a low frequency hum
crept up from the walls. It was almost mechanical, like
an elevator, long out of cortification, shuddering behind concrete. Leaning
over the fifth four banister, I peered up through a
gap where the stair wall wall at the window the
sixth floor, a rectangle of heavy glass, crusted with the
recidue of years. A bulb or maybe a desk lamp,
flickered to life in sudden impulses. The dirty pink clothed
when dark glowed again a deliberate signal, almost rhythmical. Drops
of sweat crawled down my neck. I ned a camera,
but the image was muddy, out of focus, shapes behind
the glass impossible to define. My audio recorder, though picked
up more than dead air. I caught a sequence of footsteps,
deliberate and slow somewhere above, not heavy nor shoffing like
the janet has caught, just the quiet cages of a
person moving carefully, accompanied by a low scoff and what
might have been the memmor of voices through multiple lays
of plaster and rabah. The light's cut out again before
two twenty. The entire building seemed to exhale in that moment.
I let the camera roll a little longer, scanning every window. Nothing.
By morning, cafeen propped me up well enough to catch
the night janitor at the subway entrance. Gregg was fifty,
maybe perpetually shrouded in flannel and resentment. I waited until
no one else was around. Hey Gregg, you ever worked
the sixth floor? I kept my tone light. He wearily
eyed my phone, then shook his head. We don't go
out there, no point to the stairs block off right,
he sniffed, glancing over his shoulder. Sometimes I see lights. Sure,
management says it's a circuit thing, but the wires are dead.
If you hear anything, it's nothing. Don't worry about it, liar,
I thought, watching how his gaze refused to lend anywhere
for long. I spent the next iro cross referencing the
previous few weeks of building email several tenants, a couple
on the third floor, some one from the shipping office
complained about lost paperwork, calls, getting routed to deadlines, and
seeing shapes behind the high glass odd eyers. Their language
was careful. I think it was the wind. One wrote,
probably maintenance, but I didn't recognize the silhouette. My own
in books had a dozen messages about deliver is misplaced
and support tickets are resolved by technicians who never signed
the log books. There was unmistakably a pattern, not ghosts,
but things, misplaced voices, misplaced lights, The flickered on and
off in patterns nobody could explain. Sitting at my work station,
the binder opened all its obscure diagrams, I felt the
fact shift beneath me. Some one was using this floor,
or the idea of it, to manipulate the building's riddance
at exactly whose behests I needed to discover for myself.
As the day slid by, I transformed from casual skeptic
to obsessive documentarian. My next run through Blue Streets reactive
tenants was more targeted. Each interviewer searched for concrete evidence.
In the web of daily frustration and low level dread,
no one trusted official forms Each guds floated toward the stairwell,
towards shadows crawling up the wall. At dusk. Maya by,
now accustomed to my recording gear, appeared more open. After
a few gentle questions. Last week, she confided, I found
a delivery slip on my counter. It was the wrong address,
but it had my handwriting. She frowned, brow pinched. I
don't remember filling it out, and the original gone. Then
Monday morning, everything I'd lost reappeared, but notes called on them,
not in my own pen. Who keeps dampering with my paperwork?
I pressed gently? Did you report it? She offered a
wan smile. We don't make trouble for management of it.
Trust me better that way. Every shop here knows. Tony
more Judery by the Day described a scene from his
after I was vigil thing is computers kept darling out
at three in the morning, walk past my phone, red
lights blinking in internal extension. I picked up and herstatic.
But the call said it was from six oh one.
That's the six, isn't it? Only heard? It was gobbled?
But some one was speaking real quick, then hung up.
Even the security team, always stone face started to bend
Phil The midnight God met me by the mailium with
his tai Ski fingers, drumming on his flashlight. I'll tell
you something off the record, he said, Leaning close. Last month,
late back starell was open, unlocked. It shouldn't have been.
Chain on the inside was missing, dead, but not even latched.
I swear I wheeled it shut after, but his voice
trailed off, shoulders drawing tighter. There's always a draft in
that place, like doors opened where they shouldn't be. Worth
each story, my certainty grew. Whoever orchestrated these disturbances knew
the patterns of daily life here and was deliberately appending them.
I dove into the city's crumbling wrecords, spending IROs at
the municipal archives, obscenely, the coffee in hand. The listed
blueprints for Blue Street Tower confirmed by suspicion, the sixth
floor was only accessible via the elevator disabled more than
three years ago, or from the stairwalls locked behind two
iron five doors. No mention of alternate access anywhere in
the modern plans, yet, tucked between faded sheets, I found
older blueprints. There. Beneath runes of coffee stains and punch
holes are traced a set of oddly angled service corridors, windowless,
doubling back, some choked off in renovation but marked a
roof or o auxiliary maintenance. A few poked through to
the sixth and error or in admission. The rent record
showed something else. Snow official least signed for the six
or any adjacent mechanical spase since twenty fourteen. Even the
management reported routine fire compliance checks annually with signatures I
couldn't match to any living tenant or employee. I kept digging.
Cookie cutter security cam footage told a story all its own.
My friendly second shift, sharp as attack and easily bred
with Peter slipped me a thumb drive on it, for
I was a static tinge video from the rear corridors.
In those pale frames, shadows blurred in and out, never
fully distinct. But at two eighteen and Tuesday, a figure
distorted passed across the service hallway. It had ducked, moving
impossibly fast in frame one, empty by two, a lengthening shadow,
then nothing. I rewind over and over. No badge, no uniform,
but some shape, some one, sometimes two side by side, headless,
vanishing between the jumpy frames. At the last time mark
the service corridor door creaked up in a half inch pause,
then shut. Rumors world f Mike called about another memo
pushed beneath her shop door in block capitals hullway lights
need servicing scheduled t BA, please return all signed forms
by four thirty. Neither name nor signature, nobody could trace
who send it. Tony texted after midnight, found staple paper
with my name on third fel mail box, not handwriting info.
Only you and I knew. He'd stopped trusting the locks,
started leaving his lights on over night. Curt instrown, even
Phil normally inflappable, mentioned with odd reluctance he'd been hearing
voices through the ben shafts, half conversations, sometimes his own name,
sometimes a woman's laughter, echoing from somewhere no working human
should be. If I was in too deep, so would
the others. After a week of this, my own nerds
started to fray. The paranoid groom infected every elevator chime,
every skip forcemail sent, My pulse sleeping, my sleep eroded
into three iro stretches, riddled with half dreams of panic
figures running and seening halls. Then, on a Wednesday, so
quiet that even the street preacher took the day off,
I found a single page slipped under my apartment door.
The paper was crisp, knew the handwriting precise. The stairs
are safe until three three fifteen. Don't let them catch
you on tape. They watch no signature this time, no email.
My hat slammed in my chest. Some one had followed
me home, whoever this was. They wanted me to keep digging,
but not to expose them. Not yet. I studied the
note for anything, indentations beneath the handwriting, odd smules, misspelled words,
nothing but its presents the assertion that I was not
just a chronicler, but a participant. I set the note
beside my recorder and pressed my pond to the coal
window glass outside. The city lights smeared in the humid night,
looping endlessly in the reflection inside the darkness pool thicker
than ever in the corners. I realized every step would
be watched from now on, by whom or by what.
I would have to discover soon, and at my own risk.
It wasn't enough any more to chronicle patterns or theorized explanations.
Something or some one had claimed the sixth floor for itself,
and I was being drawn deeper with each clue, each
whisper in the dot work, each note left after I
was like adair. The next morning, I returned to Blue
Street with the binder zip tight under my arm, a
flat light, and feeled like in my shoulder back no
stretched tight like fencing wire. After two rounds through the building,
three suspicious glances from tenants, and a half cup of
scotched coffee, I started my search in you. The Binder's
cryptic diagrams hinted at more than dead ends. Somewhere I
suspected was a real way in. By one in the afternoon,
when most tenants had retreated behind double locked doors, I
traced one of the Binder's hand drawn passages to the
North's service hallway. Here, peeling paint revealed corrugated metal behind
the plaster, and a cluster of ragged tiles ended abruptly
at the bookcase screwed into the wall, dusted with years
of neglect. I knelt feeling for loose panels, tapping it
seems as discreetly as I could. The fourth tile gave
way with a hollow thud. I peeled it back inside darkness,
a shade deeper than the rest of the hall. There sat,
nearly flush in the wall was an axis panel, the
paint on its edge a shade lighter than the surrounding boards.
I put my ear to nod sound, remembering the most
unsettling note from the binder, watch for echo. As I
steadied my breath and pressed gently, the panel slid back
with surprising ease. The cold draft used onto my skin,
carrying the particular odor of stale wiring and old spilt salder.
Stepping through, I found myself in a shaft no more
than three feet wide. Insulation bulged where pipes had been removed,
and coblood danced in the torchly. The silence thickened with
each forward shuffle. The only hints of the living world
were the faint downbeat of car horns and a distant
hummikun place ten feet in the beam caught on a
fitted MARKT six had been scrolled in black grease, pencil
nearly lost in grime, and below it a corroded brass
plate glinted. I pressed upon to the vented door beyond
it vibrated faintly, as if alive with the current. Even
here some one had been careful in the layer. Thus
near the entrance a spotted shoo prince, interrupted by faint
dread marks, as if cargo had been moved for some
time in the past day or two. I snapped a
string of furtos and pressed the mic against the wall,
listening a harm again electric or perhaps no there underneath it.
A whisper feigned as a shiver gooseflesh crawled up my arms.
I steadied the recorder and whispered my own test, just
in case the building did what I suspected. The corridor passed,
The door was emptia batted metal benchlestice against the far wall,
A single wire check cast aside overhead wiring coiled out
of half missing panels, looping toward a lock maintenance closet
at the far end. I traced my finger along the
edge of the dusty window, a smearer a handprint recent
the grease, from upon, unmistakably new some one watched. From here.
I pressed my digital recorder into the faint breeze. The
playback whistled was static at first, then on the margins
of silence, a single feathered whisper. I looped it again,
not just random noise, a syllable, ascitant scatter. I couldn't
make it out. I snapped a series of photos of
the marks on the handriton sign and idought it complete.
Watch by two will erase tomorrow's look. At five twenty seven,
the paper was fresh, still curled at the corners. Suddenly,
movement deeper in the passage, voices, not shouts, but brisk conversation,
just above, a whisper of warning, a command. I couldn't tell.
My pulse hammered as I killed my flashlight, flattened against
the wall, an inch backward, they passed, two shadows elongated
by my torches after image. Moving with the liberate train purpose,
I squeezed myself back into the narrow axis, praying they
didn't look back. Once clear, oppressed myself into a crook
behind EATI lit to sink, sifting the air for every footfall.
The voices receded, My breath clouded before me, the server
shafts cold soaked in again. With my heart racing, I
crept back the way I came, clutching the night order.
His note was shaking hands as the panel snatch shut
behind me. I found myself blinking in the building's stifling fluorescence,
weighed down by the undeniable reality someone occupied the sixth floor,
someone methodical and fearless, who watched, tracked, and erased their
trail by bureauretted ritual each dawn. My nerves rattled all
through the following day. In edit, I scared the audio
from the passage dozens of times. I scared the track
at half speed, foldering out ambient verb, until at last
the fragment resolved. Witness. I scanned the binder again, matching
each corridor on the diagrams to the time stamps in
my new recordings. Names repeated always. Jay Lemmore, the former
property manager whose name popped up in half the controversial
expansion memos. I left three voicemails tracked down in old
maintenance work in Queens for an interview heard about the
sixth He muttered over coffee voice boxy with regret. They
sealed it after the big mess lawsuit, But nobody'll talk
of about what really happened to place. Grew hoolets like
a wound count heel can't lose it. He shifted in
his seat, voice dropping. No one wants to be the
one to cut it open again. I mapped every incident
against the city's permitting data, without exception, every act of sabotage,
every misplaced document, every unexplained event. Map to days when
an internal memo reference to repairs six floor system review,
that floor sealed. In practice. Busy on paper was the
anchor point for everything strange in the building. With mounting obsession,
I created a sprawling map on my white board, corridors
rounded up into nowhere, audit logs, faces from years old stafflus,
each event pinned with red string. At the heart of it,
the sixth floor and a simple, terrifying possibility. Someone had
never left the expansion. Some one lived watch and yearned
to control the building below, and they were growing boulder
with every passing week. I decided, finally, foolishly, that the
only way forward was live proof. I packed two field mics,
a Wi Fi camera, and every battery pack I owned,
resolved to document whatever emerged. After two a m my
nove rore too high for sleep. At one fifty, I
slept into the service corridor, flashlight sheathed at my hip.
The building entered of all but its own memories pressed
and on every side. I made my way to the
sixth floor via the hidden panels, squeezing through gear clutched
to my chest. This time my intention was not to
listen from Afar, but to invade the space, Settling into
a storage closet just off the main corridor. At microphone
lie fature of feet pointed Dan toward the distant Comforts
room out on the binder's maps. At first, the place
was silent, safe for the faint shatterer of ancient h track.
The air weighed heavier as I crept through dust laden carpet,
mutilated ceiling tiles, rows of decrepit office chairs stacked uphasively.
Dora Paco still clung to frosted glass, leasing boardroom operations.
My footsteps fell almost soundlessly. The carpet, grimy, thread bare,
absorbed all but my racing heart. Thirteen minutes passed before
anything changed. First, I, barely perceptible flickered the old security
lights blinking on. In stuttering fits, I pressed myself against
a battered credenza, Peering around the corner. Further down the
hallway through a glass saw marked conference he yellow light
spilled out faint moving beyond the privacy glass. Not shadows,
but silwet one too, may be more. I froze, nerves
stretched so tight, I thought my own breathing would give
me away. My phone buzzed once. The light from the
screen glared dangerously bright. In the gloom, I checked a
new message, anonymous number. Don't trust the lights. The temperature dropped,
as though the six floors sealed. Heart pressed an ice
back to my spine. The metallic weak was stronger now
ting shrivzone. The air vibrated with a subtle electrical in ease.
I edged closer steps, measured camera balanced to chest level.
In the silence, every scuff of my heel was catastrophic.
I recorded in a whisper. I see one figure, maybe more,
conference glasses, frosted movement, shadows. My own voice registered as unfamiliar,
A dry croak in all that tension. A metallic snap
echoed further down the corridor. I turned behind, near the
maintenance closet, a bright, shivering flash of reflection. My nerves jolted.
I stifled a gasp, ducking down, just as an indistinct
figure entered from the shadowed lunge. Their form was patchwork,
baggy clothes, face obscured by a surgical mask, A glint
of vasts so guggles beneath a pulled down ball cap.
The light in the conference room flared brightly, then gutted
out with a violent crack of ree lay stripping in
the stroke of extinguishing light. The slow acrossed the room,
jerky intent, neither quick nor slow, but filled with an
urgency that was all wrong. When the glass darkened again,
my view was empty. Only then did I realize that
every note in my hand had started to vibrate. The
recorder glitch, the static swelling into a full and holy
roar across the hall. A speaker embedded in the vestibule
ceiling bulls distorted ram It's bad of voice, but twisted,
the words, warbling as if spoken underwater. Turn off your recorder,
I pause. Then your being watched. The glass in the
window trembled. I duck lower, hard in my throat. I
pressed the mic to my mouth. There's some one else
they know I'm here. The lights flickered again, coal presence
pulling at my back, the unmistakable sense of someone standing
in the passage just beyond sight. Then every light on
the floor snuffed, and one swift stroke, even the back
of a leady cut out in total darkness. I listened
as soft footsteps approached, hesitated, stopped inches away. I tried
to tone, but the recorder if my hand flashed its
red light, then flat lined with a mechanical click. One
breath dear, I couldn't move, as if something unseem pressed
upon to my shoulder. Then nothing but the darkness so
thick I could taste it, the unmistakable in us of
being trapped, not just in space, but in the sticky
whip of someone else's careful game. The silence was absolute,
but I knew, by a shift in the air, the
shiver in the walls, and the closing of escape behind me,
that I was no longer alone. With escape shrinking behind me,
I stayed stone, still measuring the pressure at my shoulder,
half waiting for that touch to become unmistakably human or not.
The air felt taut with expectancy. My pulse jitttered in
my throat. I've reached out, slowly, fingers brushing the rough
edge of the storage shelf, calculating how loud it would
be to tople it should I need a distraction. Nothing moved,
Then just outside the door, something hard to tap against
the floor once, then a second time, keas boot. The
noise was deliberate, almost signally, holding my breath. I strained
to listen, since his stretch beyond their limit for any
intake of movement or breath. The scuffing poles lingered, then
a subtle click, like a switch. The water my left
bloomed momentarily with ghosty blue, maybe a phone screen veaint
as spill of artificial light. Nerves screaming. I weigh my options,
stay hidden and risk discovery. I move now and risk
even more. Creeping sideways, feeling the microtexture of coppet beneath
my palms, I flattened beside the supply carts, stacked with
the unused tone cartridge as the only thing clumsily shielding
me from the open door. I heard, for the first
time what sounded like quick, nervous breeding, no more than
ten feet away, not mine. The person outside the door,
whoever they were, was not calm. A sudden voice too close,
slipped through a whispered cushion. Syllable was blurred, but unmistakably human.
Is it off? I froze willing, my equipment completely inert,
fighting the ear to check the cans stand by light
silence were cute. I heard the hum of the buildings
transform us beyond. The walls hung heavy. The voice's cadence
was heard, and instead of the amplified menace from earlier,
it thobbed with uncertainty. Another lower murmur entered much closer
and deeper than the first. Check the closets to take
the notes. Movement now clear precise, the bare shuffle of
shoes and the gritty tiles. I griped one of my
backup batteries, half ready to throw it should someone lunge
from me. The shadow pass across the frosted lower panel
of the supply closet, stretching and then snapping back. As
they crouched, inspecting the other side of the door through
a narrow slit, A glimpse of pale hand fan out
across the carpet, steading their balance. The hand retreated a
shuffle of papers. They were searching for evidence of me.
Prince drop gear or God help me the recorder I'd
left too near the door. Ye see anything? A higher
voice again a little further now. My nerves shrieked, why
two people up here? After iurs in a seal space. No,
but somebody has been through the duct. Get back to base,
don't leave the lock a saddle scrape. Someone rose to
their feet, shifting something heavy. I've risked a peek and
caught a flush black track pants, a branded jacket, no insignia.
The smell of ladox and hand sanitizer hit the air,
eerily medical for an office at night. My phone, useless
in the dark, vibrated quietly, an automated battery alert. I
nearly bit my tongue, holding back a gasp. No one reacted.
The pair left the open storage first, as blending as
they were, streated their steps. I could into the hallway.
Then a sharp clunk, heavy was closing further down, deliberate lockdown,
drenched and swet mossles shaking. I waited several heartbeats, straining
for any trace of voices or a movement. Not Then
I forced numb fingers to fumble from my recorder, still dead,
but the back of mike spun a silot read. At
least a file would survive. Picking my way out, I
pressed as close to the wall as I could, moving
inch by inch past the open shelves and boxes. Afraid
any careless bump would betray me, I skirted out into
the corridor at a croach, pausing to listen. Down the hall,
the emergency exit lights cast cold green's meres atop the
door frames. The far conference room, once full of light,
was now pointedly dark to glass, reflecting only my disheveled
out line. As I called beneath its line of sight.
I was adjusted and navigated by fading glow. Past a
water cooler. I found the main access panel to the
service stair dropped open, a fresh finger print streaking the dust.
I bent to examine it and found tucches inside a
yellow to dow slip audit lock check ceiling corridor clear
by five thirty j L the handwriting mass the binder scroll.
This was no ghost story. These were assignments, ships managed
by insiders, cloaked and bureaucracy and misdirection. A deep clane
jolted me back. A disengate on the bottom floor clearly
manipulated axis points were being systematically shut, possibly as part
of some routine I triggered without meaning to. I hugged
the wall catalog into clues footprints, written orders, the real
human voices, the concerted structure of whoever haunted these upper floors.
I checked my watch nearly three a m. Somewhere in
the office beyond, I caught that tremulous flicker through the
glass again, a nervous morse coat signaling in the dark.
I knew with an unambiguous certainty that somewhere behind the
next turn I would find not just watches of the building,
but the center of something colder, deeper in operation, layered
in secrets, shrouded in plausible deniability, and worried enough to
chase even an amateur below the legal floors. I paused
one last time, fingers at my lips. If it'd seen me,
escape was unlikely. I'd have to rely on the same
anonymity that got me this far, and trusted, perhaps arrogantly,
in my wits, to slip out before dawn. My mind
throbbed with tension. I pressed myself into the tightest curve
of the passage, unweighted, eyes fixed on the thin line
of light, straining for any sign that it meant rescue
or another trap. That was where I was, heart beat
against concrete when a new mechanical wine started up from
the depths of the building, a signal, or maybe just
the old elevator cycling up to the forbidden floor. The
next move, I knew would be dictated by however, or
whatever was orchestrating the silent, very real conspiracy atop Blue
Street Tower. I wedged myself deeper into the service corridor's
blind curve, pulse thumping in my ears, willing myself invisible
the mechanical drone, the elevator, or something else, with teeth
deepened as I pressed flat against the grime cinder block, listening,
but oh somewhere behind me clanged the echo, rolling a
long ducts and dying away. For a flickering second, all
sound was eaten by the undertone, metallic, sturdy, far older
than the building's age would admit. I force measured breaths,
bracing for motion in the corridor, but silence pressed me harder.
Cold leached from the concrete into my bones, swept, cooled,
and dried, all at once. Whatever triggered the new noise
above the parade of doors slamming, the flash of emergency
lights shifted the balance of control deeper into their hands.
Still add the note the doll back up recorder, my
phone scraping seventeen percent battery, and the growing sick certainty
that any eggs it would need more luck than design.
Something tugged me back from the edge of panic, a
line from the memo in my breast pocket. The stairs
were safe until three fifteen. I jacked my watch, luminous
hands stabbing two fifty nine time crossing, sticky, heavy as syrup.
Every part of me wanted a bold feet slapping up
the old staale, or two at a time, back into
the living city. But at the heart curiosity nod rawn
and broken. The six four was to corpse rodden in
city reel estich. It was still breathing, still shifting, and
now I was tangled in its lungs. I cut forward,
inch by inch, every step, weight passed the open service panel.
I pressed through a squeeze of ancient ventork, toward where
the light had last flared. The conference room, now dim,
mist cellar dust yawned empty behind glass, but outside the
door another glove flickered, a coal blue reminiscent of a
century old computer screen behind a warp supplish half. I
found myself facing what looked at firs like a bank
of old davy cart's wire together. My heart snagged as
I took it into Frankenstein's tangle of cable so its
protectors and battered surveillance monitors, each green offering a crooked
slice of the building's cuts. The lobby elevator car always
shot several floors below, even a dark glimpse into a
tenant's mail room. The main board and abuse cork slab
bristled with pushpins and a whirlwind of scribbled notes, lines
looping over color print outs of tenants faces, schedules in
military time, and arrows pointing to doors marked on my
own binders, diagrams on one's still powered corte. The six
floor's main corridor stretched away a single empty passage and
a blown out emergency bulbs, but every thirty seconds or so,
static swallowed it, and the screen spasmed, as if a
large shape passed just outside camera view. No sound, just
digital ghosts beneath the monitors, on a scarred desk, more
evident half empty water bottles, the cracked coffee maluk, a
stack of quietly yellowing legal pads, all jammed with obsessed
of lists. I thumb through one noise one thirty eight
am tenant to be investigate patterns returned form to two
g false alarm, the anxious grouse by kit, the scroll
evolving by page three into block print, then abruptly changing hands.
Same routine tract disturbances, neutralize erased physical evidence. A final
entry to day's day, ridden with visible pressure audit ongoing
management refuses to shut it down. Enter at three twenty
nine only. I paged quickly through the notes, sweat climbing
on my wrists. The longer I read, the clearer it became.
This was no fanciful security system. It was an operation
set on anticipating, cataloging, and quietly violating ten in privacy,
Each strange memo, each missing form, every spurious extension on
Toni's phone started somewhere up here. I fought to steady
my breath. Something clattered behind me, faint but urgent, as
if something metallic, keys or a flashlight dropped against tile.
Voices followed. I froze, blending into the dark. From just
outside the room came the same hush, clipped exchange two people,
the words half swallowed by the thick air. He's back
on base, you scan, No clause is empty. The voice
was tight, wary of being overheard, set the alarum, then
loop it again. Footsteps advance, then receded, and the door
at the end of the whole ground open. When its
swung shot silence widened up once more. I chanced a
thin beam of my flashlight downward, hoping for a note book,
a clue, anything to explain why management, who pretended this
floor didn't exist, had orchestrated alive, breathing sevellance ring in
their own attic. My beam landed on a slippery carpet
of debris, take out containers, discarded k N ninety five masks,
empty pill bottles from years gone by, a scent of
powdered cheese and must all peat's agrees in something eerily chemical.
Five suppress and foam may be wandered up to choke
the air. The space hadn't just been watched into existence.
It had been lived in for months, maybe years. A
bat of walcalland of two years out of date pages
over and by loops of red pen flick out as
another low current click the spaces lights lions connected tenant's
names with crooked at times presumably their disturbanced windows. The
chaos of urgency was deliberate whoever lived up here kept
every tenant's habits in DECKA cross referenced and weaponized. One
pole roage not old enough to fade, showed the mail,
and two falls down taken from above in' it's up a,
CORNER a blurred face. MINE i speat cold all, over fear,
biting without, drama just cold. Logic they'd followed. ME a,
faint looping click from the speaker, system then a whisper
too thin to be anything but. Live you see it,
now stop Asking for a, MOMENT i stopped moving, completely
fingers twitching over the edge of the surveillance. TABLE i
couldn't tell if the message was automated or were delivered
in real, time whether meant for me or a partner somewhere.
Else either, way my skin prickled. Afresh this was to
ghost in the. Wires it was a human, being deliberate intimate.
Warning my form pined anew incrypt detects leave last. WARNING
i stared at the, message. HANDSHAKING i needed, evidence but
staying long a risk crossing into something other than. Reporting
driving past rising, NAUSA i scanned the space once, more
werged under a crooked, CHAIR i caught the edge of
a weathered, notebook the cover, torn the spiral. BENT i
opened it to her, confessions scratched In hurd's gripped in
case someone finds, This i'm sorry for what we. Did
we couldn't risk another no, signature no. DATE i photographed
a quickly tucking the book into my. Coat by, Now
moe's movement overhead had faded. Over an iron must have,
passed maybe. MORE i judged from the light strobing beyond
the conference room that the watchers were shifting their. PATROL
i spotted a camera lens, above barely visible through duct,
tape the power light softly blinking, Amber pressing myself, low heart,
RATTLING i found a bolta utility closet, Nearby inside more filing,
boxes bound and labeled and possessed caps for legal do
not shred the papers must distench book of a decade in.
DARKNESS i slipped my voice recorder, out persisting the urge
to narrate. Directly, INSTEAD i photographed every, page focusing on
signatures Led ahead's. Jargon the earliest files detailed routine maintenance
and hen and, onboarding but the stack beard into legal.
Wrangling by twenty, thirteen after the, incident all access suspended
until further. Notice employee terminations to be process quietly recommend
extra surveillance of new. Tenants the page is cash hand, annotated, blackmail,
Embezzlement where's the? Money the story that merged was WHAT i.
Feared the six floor shot after a stafford, disappeared, investigated
then a raise from. Mention in all but these secret,
files one memo caught MY. I. J lemore RESUMED duei under,
review keep all notes, private maintain facave for, tendancy do
not allow, search and building rewrote all suspicious. Activity it
was signed by two names matching expansion lawsuits From Elow Blue.
Street history of the men who vanished after the settlement
loose beneath these, pages half melted employee id sun burned past,
recognition others. INTACT i turned them in my, palm reading
a familiar name. TWICE. J lemmore emails at the, bottom
bared nerves and cliped desperate. Language audits in. Complete how
do we keep them from? Checking six arrange more, diversions,
papers memos noise the few who noticed the safer for.
EVERYONE i snapped photos until my hands, cramped careful never
to jostle the PILE i whispered a time stamp into my.
POCKET mic found intern all legal documents, confirmed cover, up,
embezzlement missing, staff secret, surveillant the six floors in open
secret among. Management they are still up, here living inside the.
Wound just AS i, finish another, footfall, heavier this time
sent me scraping toward the conference rooms adjoining cove closet
hard clenched, TIGHT i eased the door, Shut peering through
the white crack from the gloom, BEYOND a figure, emerged
mass tight across their, face soft blonde hair poking from
beneath the. Rattycap they moved with a patient efficiency of,
routine pausing to check each, switch paper and security. DISPLAY
a bulging shopping bag went to the. KITCHENETTE a clipboard,
followed dragged in and avonpracticed silent. Sequences the figure swept
up an envelope set beside the, door my name on
it in block, print the date set for. Tomorrow adrenaline fault.
LOGIC i considered, bolting raising my, phone or trying to
confront them at, right but the figure spun, sharply as
if feeling my. Stair their hooded eyes swept the closet's
gap then lingered longer than should have been possible for
someone on a Air every muscle screamed at me to, breathe,
shallow to. Freeze, INSTEAD i let risk. SPEAK i slipped
my little voyiice, chorder still warm to the closet's, edge
thumbed it on and, RASPED i know about the. INCIDENT
i note what the sixth floor. Hid the words just
loud enough to carry fell like a. Dare the figure
stiffen scanning the, ROOM i spin points, up time hun.
Open their gaze found my, envelope paused and in a
gesture somewhere between resignation and, anger they dropped to micro
cassette player onto the, envelope stamped it beneath one latex,
palm and after a lawn, pause backed out of the.
Room when their footstitch, RECEDED i waited another three full
minutes before prying the door open and slipping AT i
snatched the envelope and the tiny, player hot so LOUD
i could barely hear the rise of new voices echoing
in a fog. Corridor inside the, envelope a single micro
cosette black electrical tape holding the spool in place in block.
Letters some one have written one word. Confess there was
only one thing to. DO i bundled myself against the supply,
shelfs lotted the tape into the player and turned the
tiny wheel with stiff shaking. Fingers at first just static
and warble, feedback then a voice old mail worry as
we cold rain broke, through slow and. Ragged if anyone
gets this year too, Close i'm. Sorry my Name's lemire
AND i was property manager here years, back twenty thirteen
after the, expansion something happened on this. Floor uney missing,
records THINKED i let people and who shouldn't have been,
here said yes to suits who threatened the. Crew one,
night As sta From arisol peril walking on a meeting
she shouldn't have. Seen after, That, lord it went, sideways she.
Vanished they made a sign, off told us to loop
the paperwork until nobody could find her. Name the insurance
didn't want. Scandal they paid some. Off they told the
rest of us to stay quiet and monitor critical. Access
that's how it. Started his breath wheezed a, cough cutting.
IN i heard voices off. Tape hurry up before he heard.
On we used the Sixth that is a watch post
management's idea, first then. Mine tenant ax odd logitt he
noticed a, disturbance changed the paperwork wereout the coal divert
with a. Memo if any tenant gets too, close nudge them,
back slide a warning under their. Door move what they,
lose keep their mind. Spinning we kept people safe from the.
Whole marisol left a, wound, yes but also. Barrier nobody
wanted to admit what we. Covered the tapes gidded as
another background voice, hissed, angry urgent to just shut it.
Down you brought her, here now you take care of.
It La moore, again voice. Trembled if you're, here if
you hear, this your part of it, Now either you
stay and help us keep the wound closed till you
disappear it. Too. Click end of, Tape the message, left
and after taste of threatened guilt all at, Once lemore
wasn't mourning so much as come scriping. Me but even
as resentment rose in, ME i dread certainty poles. Beneath
IF i brought the story, DOWN i might not be
the only one at. Risk, SHIVERING i crept toward the
conference room's, edge out toward the supply closet in search
of more evidence of increasingly an. Exit that was when
my nurse blew. Out at. LAST a fix set figure
burst into the corridor mast, tide wielding a blinding. Flashlight without,
THINKING i held my hands, up recorded dangling voice steadier
THAN i. Felt why do you, care the figure, asped stepping.
Forward their voice was, male world worn and. Familiar it
was the same you wo me based THAT i delivered
the confession on. Tape nobody cares about this, place not of,
says not the. City it's not your. Story my mind,
spun searching for any. Play i'm not here to hurt.
ANYONE i just want the truth about, myers all the,
surveillance the, audits the floor people. DESERVED i know what's
been done up. Here the figure, LAMORE i, realized fully
let the flashlights, sink cleare shrinking from my face for a,
second only the shaking in his flashlights being betrayed any.
Fear truth that he spat more worn than angry. Shrews
Is management cut us, loose and we, stayed some by,
choice some by. Guilt you break this, Story maybe you free.
Us maybe you just bring their lawyers instead of their.
Thocks he tapped one gloved hand against his, temple then
gestured at the disarrayed maps and. Memos we had a
job contain what happened To marisol and what happened after
when the upper floors went, bad when the documents kept,
changing no matter how many times we double, CHECKED i
started moving things, myself, TUMPERING i, guess sliding the wrong
paperwork to the right, box listening to tenant voicemails through,
dutwork whispering. Reminders fear keeps people from snooping too. Hard
we did. IT i did it to keep anybody else
from falling. Through Sometimes i'm not even sure If i'm
alone up here on the ugly, nights the light went,
cut even if her trip the breakers, myself something never
left when she. Did he was feverish when tied around
a pain shopper than he could. Upline the skin beneath
his mask was, cracked and even in the near, dark
tragedy clung to, him a one stolid, man reduced to midnight.
Ghost his conspiracy enough. Power But, penance why NOW i,
pushed inching her corder. Closer why slip the binder to?
Me why the? Memmos what's? Changed his mouth, Worked. Alex she,
said you were, stubborn wouldn't let it go if you got.
Close maybe stubborn enough to air it up for good this.
Time but you're not. Safe they know you've seen too.
Much footsteps thundered further down the, whole, faster, heavier more
than one set lemore jerked, upright panic flaring there. Here
it's not just me and the road to, NIGHT i
have tuered before he, Finished every light on the six four,
blinked then flickered, violently as if a neon sign were
being stabbed by a. Switchblade static exploded from the vestibule.
Speaker another figures strode into, view smaller must hug. Low
nothing readable in their eyes except. Urgency she can't. Leave
nobody leaves. NOW i caught just the edge of a
staff badge swinging near the waist blue logo the building's stylized.
Tower instinct, SCREAMED i twisted bolting for the corridor's blind
end behind. Me lamorechhe, added not at, me but the oncoming. Figure.
Stop that wasn't the. Dealer something heavy. CRASH a filing
cabinet bowled across the. HALL a flurry of, curses spitting
into the. GLOOM i hurtled past a buckling wall, panel
mind racing through every MAP i poured over in the last.
Week the ventilation stapped the one behind the main, corridor
last marked in the blue, prints as maintenance only had
to connect with the. STAIRWELL i risked a glance over my.
Shoulder only chaos lamore and the master compass wrestling shadows
flailing under dying lights are weird, off, kilt a rhythm of,
alarm chine starting to. BUILD i basted the panel with my,
side wincing at the dry crack of bone un, metal
and forced it open by main. Strength the odor that
poured out was foul ozon, plastic heeded to the age of,
combustion the stench of decades old. CABLES i squeezed, in
hands and, Knee scurping against. Insolation in the, DARKNESS i
felt more than heard the lurch of feet behind. ME
a blast of alarm bled, suddenly a discordon off, time
a cacophony of, bells too old and out of sink
to be. Intentional emergency lighting, fail plunging every surface into
shadow except where the periodic gray blinkers throbbed in and.
OUT i fought, forward knuckles splitting on rusted sheet, steel
adrenaline burning off. Restraint then up ahead a rectangle of grimy.
Glast the old stairwelldow locked for the last, year may be,
more but it was, moving quaking, gently as some one
below panded up toward it from the fifth. Floor my
phone chimed a, TEXT a stairwell now, Run no, name just.
URGENCY i pressed my weight to the. Door it gave,
curagingly AND i stumbled out into the, stairwell proper fission,
swimming breath ragged in my. Fruit the siren behind was,
deafening a whipplish, howl warning nobody in. Particular BEFORE i
could orient, myself a dark formall and civilian, clothes haggard
adrenaline gloss seized my, arm wrenching me down the. Steps
go you need to go. Now their, eyes, unmistakable fierce would,
worry were the same that had flickered over the top
of the binder weeks. Ago, alex's my silent, correspondent the bargaining,
soul who until this moment left only another side of
warnings and whispered. Hints together we have fell half dived
to the sublanning slimming through a walk fire door that
snapped into place behind. Us with a wet final, climb
my hand was bleeding toes numb with. Coal alex pressed
me up against the cinder, block close enough to smell
adrenaline and. Fear. Listen she spat had duc. LOW i
was in management years, ago after the, audit the missing
money to. Go none of it was supposed to be,
public but something in the wiring, changed like the floor itself.
Rodded some of us stayed to keep eyes on, it
to contain the, trouble to protect the. Tenants when the
city stopped carrying it got. Worse we started seeing, more hearing.
More her gaze bored into. ME i send you the first.
Warning wanted you to get enough to shut this place
down for, good but they know you have too. Much
the other watches won't let you just. Walk we started
moving as feet thundered somewhere Buff the alarms, flickered dropping
in and, out a chaotic ballet of warning strokes in.
DARKNESS i tried to ask, more But alex hustled me
down the, stairs urgency hardening her. Features they'll keep the
alarms running until you're. Found if you, escape now bring
all you, have use your. Platform blue. Streets cancer only
survives in. Shadow sure every one on the third, landing another,
crash much closer signal. PURSUIT i down my bleeding hand
into my, jacket clutching the recorder and the list of,
Evidence bind, her my, cocossette, pots the legal, locks pocket.
Notebook one more, Thing alex. Whispered as we reached the
final heavy door to the ground. Floor don't look back
when you cross the. Threshold the, lights when they flicker,
together it means the floors waking, up not just the,
people but something. Else we reached the locked, door metal,
bent where so many others had tried to. Leave alex elbowed,
it throwing every last ounce of fury and regret behind the,
movement and with a ragged, pop it swung. FREE i
stumbled onto the linoleum of the lobby by, instinct shrieking,
alarm still sneaking from, above The don's first blue light
stained the glass outside the city's distant pulse. Colt alex
glued the last memoid at lock see five thirty to
the exterior of this, stairwell a final salvo against. Secrecy
as we barreled through the revolving. Doors city police sirens
split the air two blocks, away drawn by the cobble
to give alarms blurring from every arbor. Window we skidded
to a hauld, outside breath mingling in a chilled, morning
both of us shaking with exhaustion and. FEAR i risked
a glance back Against alex's. Warning six stores, above the
conference rooms like, flat brighter than ever, before first split.
POLLS a shadow long li mortionans stood at the center
of the, window watching Neither lamo Nor. Alex the light,
stuttered then abruptly black Hat the building stood blank once
more for the first. Time my niece gave. Out alex
helped me, up guiding me to the, curb both of us.
Trembling my mind is spinning mess of, revelation, horror, exhaustion
and underneath the strighteous. FURY i pressed the back up
her corder to my, lips foresteaded for the first time all.
Night sixth floor evidence collected survive is, free story. Ready
if you're hearing, this it means we did what others.
Wouldn't Blue streak kept a secrets for two Long it
ends now everything after blowed into The russian glare of
the outside. World police cause piling up on the, curb
stund officers pounding on the lock. Glass tenants in nightclothes
sushered out into the early. Morning flashbulbs taped the dazzle
of morning, News alex disappearing into the crowd as quietly
as she'd. ARRIVE i spent the next day and night
at my desk piecing the evidence into something. Coherent my
hand shook AS i edited voice, over alternating between confession and.
Indictment the, podcast when it would, out made city wide head.
Lines by. Noon clips from news anchstrauded the, airwaves un
alleged to veillance were. Inexposed in mid Under Blue street
how cordoned off after years of secret tenant, MONITORING a
police confirm evidence of hidden, ruins legal, audits possible missing
persons case. Reopened lawy is keeyed for. Comment property management
refused every request but promised full co. Operation tenants From Blue,
streets some who'd called my, voicemail some who'd never trusted Der,
lock spoke out on. Camera tony's was quivered in the audio.
MONTAGE i always thought some one was, watching BUT i
hoped it was just my. Imagination may up blinking in. Daylight,
added none of us were refused safe in a place like. That,
again a hush fell whenever the six floor came, Up
cranes and police tip ringed its, windows and no one officers,
included made any effort to check it. Alone within two,
weeks the upper floors were, emptied the officers shrouded and
citi and dated black. Plastic these holders got free. Relocations
investigators filed in and. Out H r records were, redacted
but unde AND i will admit a cover abs and.
Surveillance lemore and the other custodians were charged with a
laundry list of, abuses corporate, moutheasants criminal, trespas most played
out in low, voices head, bowed even management silence so
long felt the city's eye shifting. Inward we had no
knowledge of these unlawful. Activities that was the official press.
STATEMENT i then it was too. LATE a decade winds
had finally opened raw in. PUBLIC i ended my special
episode with the sound that started at, all crackling, static
now an, emblem not a. Warning something was never caught on.
TAPE i admitted a trout scraping my. Throat we captured everything,
physical a paper trail bleeding out from years beneath the,
lights but the feeling in the, darkness the magnitude of
what was left. Behind it doesn't fit on AN sd.
CARD i walked the block every night that, week so
snuckle let the story. Rest but each PASS i Watched
Blue Street tower seed into, silence its upper windows gone
black as rotten. Teeth days turned to, weeks the podcasts moved,
on and city news drifted. Elsewhere The Blue street faded
from the public, mind its doors, locked six floor windows.
Boarded tenants, scattered most wanting only to, forget but some
stores refused to die with new, cycles no matter how carefully.
Sealed late one, evening my old pop cust line rang
in a known, number static ue in the. Background is
this off a sorry to bother? It ar J, t
the new guy in Four? Sea is this the right
number for the? PODCAST i, answered weary but. Polite, sorry
just his voice, dropped. CHEAPISH i heard some rumors about the,
building BUT I i don't believe in that, stuff, Really
but for someone supposed to be up there on the,
sixth he hesitated, breath and, EVEN i mean it should
be empty now? Right he clicked, off but a follow
up was into my inbox a few minutes. Later attached
a blurry cell phone photo shot from side walk level
across the. Street there it was the six four's outsed
window had been wiped, clean like pouring, out brighter Than
i'd ever seen in flesh or. Film it wasn't the
sickly Flickering bolbovo's night no, pattern no warning, morse but a,
steady aching, blaze as if the building itself wanted to
be seen once. More and centered in that, GLASS a tall, shadow,
indistinct a moving and silent stood facing the, city no,
mask no, features but certain as Anything i'd ever, known watching,
outward watching back at. Me my hands trembled AS i
closed the. EMAIL i set the phone down and speaking
some LIGHT i understood then never really burn, out and
whatever remained on the six, four now human or, not
waits for some one else to look up and. WONDER
i left my phone where it, was half expecting the
image to change or flicker away IF i looked too.
Long the shadow in the, window after everything we'd exposed
and all the, grind finally scurb, clear stood there with
a posture that was almost. WAITING i pictured a dozen
explanations from bowerteenes to a late night, inspector but none
of them matched WHAT i, saw how the light cut
through the. Layer dirk to crom that saw how it
tilted not toward the, floor but atwood head, up as
if acknowledging every gaze. BELOW i Called jay t back
BEFORE i could rethink. It he answered on the second,
ring sounding more alert than. Before did you see it?
AGAIN a long, silence then a nervous. LAUGH i haven't looked.
Again to be, HONEST i closed the. Blinds is is
there really nobody up? There not any? More not. Officially
don't go, up Jay, tea even if the elevators start working.
AGAIN i let the warning tumble, out as much for
myself as for. Him if you notice any thing, else
let me know seriously than tell anyone. Else you see who's?
New he mumbled something, grateful and heard off the, line
the city's night noise following. Him the photo remained a
glowing wedge on my. SCREEN i forwarded it To alex
with the subject thought we sealed. This seconds, stretched then her,
REPLY i moved out last, week still locked from inside
that tiny, phrase poor cold water drew my stomach or
replacing victory with something rawn. FINISHED i closed the laptop
and went to the. Window the, tower just visible between
two new o glass, desads loomed as it always, had
subtle and dominating with its row of dark upper, windows
only now a faint glimmering from the highest. ONE i
watched long, enough from eyes to. Water the light never.
WAVERED i slept in, short jarring bust at, night brainnying
at every, sound and shadowed the way it had during
the sleepless stakeouts weeks. Before some time before, DAWN i bolted,
awake CERTAIN i heard not inside my, apartment but somewhere
out on the fire escape a, tap, faint, deliberate like
The king Of, morse coat knuckles against. Glass the city
hummed the same as, ever But Blue street tower poles
in the back of my mind a wind refusing to.
Close the next, DAY i let myself get pulled back
into the WEB i had told MYSELF i was finished
with chasing ghosts and cleaning up after the city's wounded.
Past but HERE i was measuring my own resolve against
one burned out. CORRIDOR i called the city's property management,
line holding for four layers of music until a clip voice,
ANSWERED i gave my credentials and asked about the six
flour re. Entry we have no scheduled reoccupancy for that,
level the employee, reply bored and prickling under every. Word
the cordes. Change only the insurance auditors and city inspectors have,
access and that strictly for safety. Compliance anyone else oppressed
maintenance cleaning, staff night patrols none? Authorized are you reporting unauthorized?
AXIS i hung up BEFORE i could. Lie, INSTEAD i
drifted down To Blue street on, foot crossing through the
gray mid morning light that left every surface bleach and
and remarkable police tapes still flapped at the corners of
the tower's. ENTRANCE i stood across the street and countered.
Windows the sixth floors class had been s quigied cleaned by,
someone an official or maybe one of those officers who
had left dusty beet prints on the inside WHEN i
was lost up, There but now the leftmost bag glowed
faintly with a sodium haze despite no visible lamp or.
FIXTURE i delivery van blocked the. Alley two uniforms moved
boxes up the back, steps faces drawn and posture. Stiff
BEFORE i could second guess. MYSELF i fled one down
with a nod any work being done up. TOP i
cast my voice casual soul lights on last. Night the
younger of the two looked, up then. Away nawd us
second time this, week someone. Asked he dipped his, head
glancing at the, badge swinging for my. Coat cops won't
go up without back, up not after you. Know the
wind chopped our conversation. APART i thanked him and drifted
past the revolving, doors fighting the old verge to push.
Through but there was a new combination lock in, place
and my cred as a reporter did not extend to
getting thrown out by the department tasked without diting a local. Scandal,
INSTEAD i circled to the convenience store next door with a.
Clerk an old woman with a voice like ripped construction,
paper pulled a face WHEN i brought up the sea.
Floor some stores are better boarded, up she, said her
hands folding over the. Register but if you ever find
whose leave it all those sticky notes in my, alley
let me know Every monday without. VEIL i pressed for,
more trying to learn if any of the custodians had been.
By she, hesitated then shrugged. Once maybe bulk order of
batteries and two packs of instant, noodles but that's weeks.
Ago he looked right through, me like he didn't see
much at. ALL i left the, sore. Uneasy the idea
that someone slipped back in Every, monday moving unseen through the,
garage or maybe tunneling in by habit itched under my.
SKIN i spent the next forty minute shadow in the,
perimeter scanning windows and shadow. LINES a few TIMES i
THOUGHT i saw something shift at the edge of the
six four glassic cut and billowing a flick of dark
against the pale, background but WHENEVER i, blinked the image
snapped back to plane empty. Rectangles on, IMPULSE i ducked
into the alley beside the delivery van and slipped through
the narrow gap behind the recycling. Bins previous dickhats had
taught me there was a rusted via door on the
side lorn a goat chain, shot but someone had clipped
the padlock since the last city, inspection maybe during the
police raid or maybe somebody. ELSE i pressed my hand
to the. Handle it was cold but. Free for a,
MOMENT i weighed whether to push. It my phone buzzed
at your, note running down my BACK a new, text don't?
That was? It just a single word from an unlisted.
NUMBER i froze thumb. Hovering there was only one person
who texted with arcade AND salex of someone who'd gotten
hold of her. CONTENTS i looked, up heart, POUNDING i
skimmed the roof tops and nearby. Windows no. ONE i
backed away the. DOOR i moved and re entered, daylight
letting the crowd swallow me. Up the lesson was, simple a, boundary,
real even if, invisible marked by, warnings more persistent than
any lock or. Bolt but the story was not done with.
Me that, afternoon two more emails. Arrived the first was
the scan of an old office memo WHEN i hadn't seen,
before with a blue header and a clear date from
a year after the official shut, down all six four
logs to be destroyed before transfer of. Ownership the signature
at the bottomless, lemos, shaking as though the hand that
wrote its struggle to remain steady to the last. Line
the second was from an anonymous, ander no, text just
the short video. Attachment my hand trembled AS i swept it, open,
shaky black and white footage played, someone maybe with a
pun maybe an old camcorder had filmed from inside the
building after. Dark the frame jostled pan. Upward there for
a few ten seconds was a six to four, corridor
familiar from all my, nights creeping through. It doors stood
half a. Jar the far end was illuminated by the
same impossible collless light as the videos. OPERATE a edge,
closer the lens caught the outline of a human, figure Not,
lemour Not, alex not any ONE i, recognized standing Loose,
linden facing outward and, moving the faceless presence in the
window arms at its. Side only when the operator flinched
and the video cut off THAT i registered the absence of,
sound no, breathing no, frtfuls only the low stata kiss saturating.
EVERYTHING i closed the. File my hand refused to. Steady
if the recording was, recent days, old or EVEN i,
was it meant some one had by passed police, cordons security,
upgrades and whatever management now called enhanced tenant Protect neither
someone never left the six four after, all or something
compelled the pattern to begin anew every time the building
tried to forget it was nearly dust by the TIME
i allowed to wait to. SETTLE i walked back to
my office up a hot. Cup the city's flow and.
Broken no matter how many secrets spilled out from my,
Window Blue Street tower was just visible and silt brooding
geometry in electric, twilight night, settled and, again as if
by unspoken, agreement a sliver of light poles in the
sixth floor corner, stronger not, weaker and once in the,
darkness a thin electronic whine threaded through my desk, speakers
a brief and locatable, feedback a morse, blit vanishing almost
as soon as it. BEGAN i unplugged everything tack. Quiet
the dread was sharper than, before not BECAUSE i feared being,
watched but BECAUSE i recognized the. Loop this, story like
so many rooted and neglected places and broken lines of,
authority would at last every effort to confine or expose.
It Maybe lemore had vanished And alex had moved, away
but their, rituals the, watch, locks, lights and warnings, persisted
because the city itself demanded a. WITNESS i pulled out
the notequide, rust flipping through the interest one last time
near this center in cramp. PENCIL i found a phrase i'd,
overlooked bracketed by the same careful. Hand if you're reading,
this you are the next. Line don't let it fall.
Duck sitting in my own light, WINDOW i made a
second copy of the recording the original binder at the.
Confessions even the new video was sent by a. STRANGER
i set them, aside midway between archive and. Offering some
lights cannot be extinguished by breaking bulbs or closing. Files
the city spun on around, me oblivious to the pulse
high above. MIDDAWN i left my blinds open that, night
the six floor lamp of faint echo in the, glass
marking a spot in the city's nervous system where memory
and guilt never fully. Vanished in the weeks that, followed
more newcomers arrived At Blue Street, tower load by cheap,
rent urban, legend or stubborn. Disbelief some called the podcast line,
half expecting a. Prank in. Return others sent blurry bethels
snapshots of flickering windows at odd, iris always with the
same anxious. NOTE i thought this place was supposed to
be empty. NOW i never told them to stay away at. Right,
curiosity after, all is as contigious as any. Haunting sooner
or LATER i realized every building leaves in an. OPENING
a scene is, sealed a pass on, misplaced a light
refusing to surrender to bureaucracy or. Legend the watchers changed
the faces behind the, glass the voice on a, memo
the falling of another silent, log but the, pattern like
the memory Of mausol limped. On if you stand outside
Bau Street tower on a moonast night and look up
past the older lamps into tangle, shadows sometimes you'll see,
it a, steady searching light in the topmost, window, waiting
calling for the next. Witness the story endows because the
city does like bloom and stubbornly against the gathering, dark
proof that some mysteries are kept alive not by, ghosts
but by the wall to remember and the fear of
what forgetting leaves. Behind SO i keep, recording always, ready
just in case one night the sixth floor al goes
out for good or burns brighter than, ever leading someone
else to, ask what's truly waiting up? There with the
cities as turned at last the right? Way and that
is the. End thank you for, listening AND i will
see you in the next one