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Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.

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Let's get into it. The first key to surviving the

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night shift is routine. Some people say it's vigilance or paranoia,

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or even caffine, but I know better. It's ritual, the

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stringing together of small ordered habits against the tide of

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darkness and fatigue. For four years, I've manned the overnight

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security posted the Churis Corporate Center, a class sided echo

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chamber spanning sixteen stories above an empty swath of city.

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By eleven p m. The building is down to a whisper,

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a far off printer at the click of badge doors,

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occasional gurgle from the PEPs. Nothing stirs if you don't

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first disturb it. I began that Thursday, as I always do,

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swiping my own card at the east side entrance, pulling

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on the oversized uniform jacket that still smells finly of

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the last detergent, and flicking the banks of overhead lights.

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In my periberal vision, the elevator's chrome doors reflected only

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my own movements. I sign it in a control check

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for notes, and glance over the digital logs of string

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of a and nut bowed swipes, accounted for nothing to

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spark suspicion or interest. After IRE's world belongs to people

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like me, and I've come to relish the neat security

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of known exactly where everyone is and is not. The

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shifts so long and quiet, broken only by the drawn

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of air circulating and the sharp snap offending machine hum.

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Time falls on itself here at night, once the last

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train leaves down hun you can almost hear the city.

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Change gaves a kind of collective exhalation as business sleeps,

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and only the word the wired and the word remain

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two hours in. Half way through my first set of rounds,

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I pass through the twelfth floor break area. Floor tiles

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color as commercial cockpit. The odor of microwave noodles clings

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thinly to the walls. It's nothing special, counter scuffed by

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hordes of lunch traffic, A lonely pot of coffee left

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charring itself on the burner. I collect the mugs or

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fill the paper towels, and check underneath the conference tables

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for anything left behind. Routine shapes the world and keeps

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it logical. That's when I see it lopsided, half jutting

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between a no limb and carpet seam bluck against gray.

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I kneel, thinking it's maybe someone's badge. Instead, it's a

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kick out heavy for its size, glossy plast with a

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single Numerica label embossed on so very far thirteen brick room.

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For a few seconds a crouch, they are examining it

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in a pool of fluorescence bill. The building has twelve

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office floors, two equipment levels, squatting square up of fourteen,

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and the penthouse boardroom no thirteen. That's not superstition. Culpriate

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architects design around their own anxieties. There is no thirteen

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four in this building, at least not one that I've

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ever seen or heard about. My badge, used all these years,

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never glows for anything with the thirteen. I sit back

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on my heels and glance at the nearest elevator alcove.

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The floor panel jumps straight from twelve, two, fourteen. All

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joke and lucky numbers mean empty floors or exhaust fans,

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or simply a numbering skip for the superstitious. But my

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key guard, freshly minted, says thirteen in an official font.

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It can't be real. It looks entirely plausible as sibling

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to every other badge you'd find on a line out

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save for the blackness and its dark number. My first

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thought a prank. Maybe Facilities may be one of the

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programmers who fusses with the offed system. But something doesn't

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add up. The plastic age of sharp clean, the sort

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of we're only given by heavy use, not novelty. It

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doesn't have the usual building logo, which is odd. Trying

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not to think too hard, I head back to Control.

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I thumb through the digital logs, arranging event by elevator

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activity as a distraction. Monitors flicker, their pale blow dusting

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the walls, elevator, ascending, elevator churning down for lake commers,

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time stance ticking by. I browse raw data, idle curiosity,

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turning towards something more pointed. Nothing appears out of line

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until I spot it two seven a m. The previous

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night elevator lock stop floor equals thirteen. I check again,

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blinking against the spread of numbers. That's impossible. The digital

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lock shows a clear sequence up down, a series of

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badge entries, and a stop at thirteen that shouldn't exist.

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I double check the camera panes, trying to find any

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sign of tampering, jerkingly, half hoping to spot someone grinning

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at me from behind a potty plant. Nothing, The cameras

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never blink, the locks don't forget, and now in my

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hand is the most unlikely key in the building. In vice,

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in its normal sea chilling, in its implication, my skin

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tidans cuspums, shivering up my arms in the humming silence.

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There's no airror message, no of his hack, just a

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door to or number that isn't there, memorialized by a

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key that never should have been made. Most knights here

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start with virtual motions and lock in a rolling gate,

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harrying my jacket, retrieving the batted attendant log, and sitting

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at my post behind the marble reception counter. My whole job,

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as I see it, is to ensure predictability. A caretaker

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of saneness. A Chair's corporate center, built two decades ago

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on a patch of prime yet uninspired city grid is

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designed so nothing feels surprising. After dark. The lobby's granite

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floor stretches under amber a leady damn lights. The glass

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walled conference rooms glimmer to my left, each flickering with

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the memories of morning meetings swept away and replaced by stillness.

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Elevators set in their brushed alumin and alcohoves, a weighed

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only the rare employee daring enough to burn the midnight oil.

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I start every shift with the circuit, first the basement

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server rooms, then the parking levels, the stark echo under

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the rows of electric ASUV, humming slightly as they trickle charge,

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then up through the stairwells. Each drew will a syrup

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of shadow until my flashlights bean slices into dust motes.

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The upper floor is thick with the scent of iron

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eized air, and the faint chemical tang from weekly cleaning

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are quite as still. Each floor tells its own story.

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Neither is always scattered with paper cups and half eaten

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catering tries finance as snacks left abandoned by exhausted number crunchers.

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The marketing annex on five is a ride of sticky

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notes and campagne posters dying in the bloomiest blue white light.

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Engineering tucked away on four hums, with gaming laptops and

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powered bricks snaking across desks like grass as Cobra's. The

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break rooms on every floor offer minimal relief from the

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blank sameness. Ancient microwaves aging for mica, the soft patter

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of vending coil spinning to spill snacks by request. On

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good night, I'll see familiar faces pressed to as greens.

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A bespectacled dy guy in a faded band tee jaw

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slack as he squints occurred, nd yet the overnight accountant,

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whereas headphunds so large, I hear the ghost of her

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playlists before I reach her cubicle. There's a reliable pair

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of Janetor's Curt and zeal unmoving like peaceful ghosts with

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mop buckets, greeting me with tired nods. Sometimes we share

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a joke commissariately about the night's slow blee, or trade

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geranola bars from our pockets. Therein saw me breeds gentleness

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I've learned. But every now and then faces vanish. This week,

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only Zeeline returns the knot. Kurt hasn't been around three

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nights running just as torrid. The daya besad men has

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vanished from her customary seventh floor window. No one raises

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an alarm burn out as some one explains he's back

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in skull o'er. Her kid's sick. She's got leave that's

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common in the city's corporate cycle. Ultern no closure. I

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make a note of it. Never as expecting more than

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life's regular attrition. My routines protect me. Badge checks at

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every internal door, q R code checks for urgent building

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note for ications, the static comfort to voice check with

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the overnight monitoring firm. There are supposed to be no

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blind spots. Every corridor banks off a camera lens. Every

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door logs are swipe every elevator stop time stamped, and

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archive for liability. Nothing in short, should ever escape the

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quiet digital eye. The tough floor, by least favorite, always

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runs a little colder, courtesy from a track unit that

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likes to urdle wine and occasionally vent mysterious icy breath.

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I traced the outline of the draft seems to emanate

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from the midpoint between the kitchen alcove and a dead

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janitor's closet. Though the logs saide the air floe is balanced. Sometimes,

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I admit I amuse myself jawed in uneven sketches of

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the floor lay its dueling, alternate routes, and hypothetical secret

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rooms in the back pages of the Lovebook, A private

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entertainment for the interminable iyros between patrols. Among us night staff,

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old rumors were circulated in half serious tones. The missing

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thirteenth floor, someone jokes over checked where they send people

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who bought the Christmas party. Unlucky numbers make for excellent

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company folklore and corporate architects on notores for their aversions.

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Something about lawsuits in Hong Kong, the Superstition's gate from

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one building code to the next. Still this comfort in

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lodge exchange link fence. Nothing truly bad ever happens here,

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I tell myself, just long iyres, miss deadlines, the glow

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of the city refusing sleep, And on this night, as

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I run through the paces, nothing feels particularly out of

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place until I'm reminded by a found object that the

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building has rules. I don't remember writing twice per shift.

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I make rounds with the clipboard pencil poorts for imaginary infractions.

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I keep a second note be coom my own scrap pad,

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wherritrak minuschi, which force coffee machine is busted? Which thermostat

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runs too hot? Last month's deployment of bug traps in

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the storage rooms. Sometimes, instead of notes or draw there's

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an oddly pleasing challenge to capture in the geometry and

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dead ends of the top fours double back corridor, or

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sketching where the heating touch fronds vanished behind drywall. The

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security system is the company's pride and joy, its claim

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of transparency. Digital freeedge roll in from every corner. Nothing

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is said to be secret, nothing unwatched. Badge logs across

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for reference in the IRA, even the meal cart's off

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it tag gets tracked. The head of Facilities likes to

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claim there hasn't been an unexplained incident in five years.

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That's true as far as any one knows, unless he

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count the time the CEO owned san fail to badge

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out after a weekend bender, but that was handled discreetly.

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The maintenance logs claim no known draft problem on any floor,

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despite what I feel sometimes under the doors. Probably just

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pressure equalization glitches. As Eelan told me, Once buildings breathe

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at night, things settle, but on the edges of sleep,

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when vending machines grow in the building creeks with the spansion.

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I think about all blueprints, the memory drifts, construction workers

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whispering about missing rooms, doors that don't open, or stores

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about a hidden executive speakeasy built in some lon ago remodel,

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a running jero, mutating with each retelling. No one I'm

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sure actually believes in secret floors, except now there's a

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key in my possession. It suggests the joke has a

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punch line. I don't understand. The black card sits next

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to my coffee. As I review that night's locks again,

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I tap its embossed numbers. A scrawl the elevator system's records, reluctant,

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but also faintly excited, each of curiosity. Perhaps I can

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help it. Want something anomalous crosses my desk. Some part

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of me has to scratch at it. The logs are

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raw EXML, mostly batches of time stamps, paired with elevator

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car numbers, floor stops, badge I d in a right

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column the programme. Four indexes run up from B two

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two sixteen, except here and there a rogue of thirteen

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blooms in the stream. At first, I dismiss it as

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a coincidence database import error. Maybe I isolate a week's

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worth of logs, sorting by four stop and D eight

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there again, over three different nights, at even intervals, Elevator

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A pauses for less than twelve seconds. At thirteen always

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between two zero and two thirteen a m followed by

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the expected stop at fourteen or back down to the lobby.

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There is no floor twelve point five or concealed mezzanine.

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I paged through the buildings as built, blipprints on the

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security tablet, floor stacked, and standard corporate monotony. The only

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mechanical are labeled Mechanical Service fifteen, but the logs say

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the teen with persistent digital certainty. My fingers are cold,

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and the urge to look over my shoulder is palpable.

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Controls closed circuit TV seem less secure in the moment,

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though white angle views reduced by static. As I tockal floors,

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I summon elevator cams for the suspect time stamps. The

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video is mostly normal, a co worker yawning, humming through

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their prone elevators, a leady panel skipping dutifully from twelve

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upwards to fourteen, except on those stopping nights. It is

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a corruption. Video escapes, then jumps forward with a tick

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of static, a lost half second, and the elevator hummy,

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as if nothing unusual occurred. I rubt sleep from my eyes.

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This is more than a prank, more than misnumbered line

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and scheduling file. I try to rest the building in

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logics embrace, perhaps a test, perhaps an engineer scripting new

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floor designators a narrow disabling test mode still buried in

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the logs as a pattern, the elevated and noting four

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equals stuttin always corresponds with a badge swipe from a

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handful of night shift regulars, some of whom I haven't

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seen this past week. My notebooks have pazard roster takes

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off names all familiar. Jake from my t Taara ocurt

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I checked the night shift, locked against the elevator records.

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Each furnished worker transits the lobby, gets on the elevator

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after one thirty a m. Then nothing, no lob for

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the elevator, returned into the lobby, no badge scan. At

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the exits. My pulse runs away, the last remnants of sleep.

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I decide to double check the video chaves. Ther monitor's

234
00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:45,919
glow under my hand is the whole world for a

235
00:11:45,960 --> 00:11:49,919
moment midweek, Jake, smiling, red bearded face appears as he

236
00:11:49,960 --> 00:11:51,840
badged and through the staff entrance at one fort e

237
00:11:51,879 --> 00:11:55,039
three a m. Three cameras catches shuffle toward the elevator

238
00:11:55,039 --> 00:12:00,480
coffee muginto he enters. Minutes pass but no core responding

239
00:12:00,559 --> 00:12:02,879
video of Jake leaving the elevator returns to the lobby,

240
00:12:02,919 --> 00:12:05,480
empty doors, yawning open. I watched the end of the

241
00:12:05,519 --> 00:12:08,480
footage several times, half expecting some manuglitch to be picked

242
00:12:08,519 --> 00:12:11,480
up by the camera's internal audit nothing, aside from a muted,

243
00:12:11,559 --> 00:12:14,200
momentary flutter of static. When the elevator is supposed to

244
00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:17,000
be at its phantom thirteen floor, the building, with its

245
00:12:17,080 --> 00:12:19,840
endless glass and sharp edged geometery, seems to shrink around me.

246
00:12:20,399 --> 00:12:23,399
Routine is losing its ability to explain. I tell myself

247
00:12:23,440 --> 00:12:26,080
it's nothing, surely a sisam error, a batch process, drop

248
00:12:26,080 --> 00:12:28,559
in an event, or an overwritten lock. But my attention

249
00:12:28,639 --> 00:12:31,240
stays snagged on that tiny, a reducible black card next

250
00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:33,720
to my culling cup, and on elevator spikes that interrupt

251
00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:37,120
the perfect hum of routine. Three nights later, the pattern repeats.

252
00:12:37,879 --> 00:12:40,600
Elevator A pauses again on thirteen, a fresh badge eyed

253
00:12:40,639 --> 00:12:44,600
epine on the locks. This time it's torrors. I begin

254
00:12:44,639 --> 00:12:47,039
to suspect that my own tendency to record every detail

255
00:12:47,080 --> 00:12:49,799
may be the very thing driving me to paranoia if

256
00:12:49,799 --> 00:12:52,320
you look deep enough, even the most secure building begins

257
00:12:52,320 --> 00:12:55,120
to offer up fractures. But the files before me feel

258
00:12:55,159 --> 00:12:58,000
solid and arguable, threaded with a growing sense of inevitability.

259
00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:00,559
On my next night off, I returned to the logs

260
00:13:00,559 --> 00:13:04,679
once more, eyes narrowed. Over five weeks, every thirteen encounter

261
00:13:04,720 --> 00:13:06,320
in the system lines up with the bad trail of

262
00:13:06,320 --> 00:13:09,120
a missing employee. In a cascade of unexplained elevator returns,

263
00:13:10,039 --> 00:13:13,440
I check maintenance tickets from the same window. Oddly, none

264
00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:16,000
of the custodial or engineering staff have a scheduled routine

265
00:13:16,039 --> 00:13:18,320
checks for flours above twelve After one a m at

266
00:13:18,399 --> 00:13:21,240
least none that show up has approved in the workoder system.

267
00:13:21,759 --> 00:13:25,039
My isolation grows the other overnight regulus than out the

268
00:13:25,039 --> 00:13:27,840
friendly circuit of late night Die HOWD replaced by hollow species.

269
00:13:27,879 --> 00:13:30,720
Missed esks often coffee mouks, coat straighten and easily of

270
00:13:30,759 --> 00:13:33,759
a rolling chairs. Most rooms retain the evidence of the

271
00:13:33,759 --> 00:13:37,159
recently present laptop chargers, plugged in calendar reminders, blinking on

272
00:13:37,279 --> 00:13:41,159
endy monitors, phona control rings during the witching ire on

273
00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:45,080
caller id HR, a hard voice ton mechanically pleasant asks.

274
00:13:45,080 --> 00:13:46,919
If I happened to see Tara after midnight on her

275
00:13:47,000 --> 00:13:50,720
last shift. They mention something about an unreturned laptop, voice

276
00:13:50,759 --> 00:13:53,639
tightening around the word concern. The call ends with a

277
00:13:53,679 --> 00:13:56,360
vague warning to document novel observations in chift lock in

278
00:13:56,399 --> 00:13:59,679
real time. I hang up un settled h R never

279
00:13:59,720 --> 00:14:02,759
balls that shift or less. They have to. The mounting

280
00:14:02,759 --> 00:14:05,200
pattern demands structure a road map. If only for my

281
00:14:05,279 --> 00:14:08,720
own peace of mind, I begin mapping every elevator stop,

282
00:14:08,799 --> 00:14:11,559
every bad scan, every unexplained gap, and come or coverage.

283
00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:15,120
A timeline emerges, marked by vanishing routines in the mechanical

284
00:14:15,159 --> 00:14:17,720
efficiency of systems designed to tell you nothing is wrong.

285
00:14:18,240 --> 00:14:20,240
My patient fractures. By the end of my six shift

286
00:14:20,279 --> 00:14:23,279
of tracking. The air feel is cut with unease, the

287
00:14:23,360 --> 00:14:26,960
monitors blink with more static than usual. Another security guard,

288
00:14:27,039 --> 00:14:29,559
someone leaned over from facilities, asks if I need help.

289
00:14:30,159 --> 00:14:32,039
I wave her off. Some part of me wants to

290
00:14:32,039 --> 00:14:34,279
solve this before it becomes official, lest I be drawn

291
00:14:34,320 --> 00:14:38,000
into explanations I can't provide. I study the elevator systems

292
00:14:38,039 --> 00:14:41,600
online console looking for loopholes. Certain commands allow you to

293
00:14:41,639 --> 00:14:44,600
override standard destination locks by using inspection mode used for

294
00:14:44,639 --> 00:14:47,799
fire drolls or moving heavy equipment. If the elevator is

295
00:14:47,840 --> 00:14:50,559
called at exactly two zero, I am then set to inspection.

296
00:14:50,879 --> 00:14:53,960
It should, by logic, ignore all non physical floor restrictions,

297
00:14:54,200 --> 00:14:56,240
but no system should ever let it pause on floor

298
00:14:56,279 --> 00:14:59,440
thirteen when it knows no such floor exists. The idea

299
00:14:59,480 --> 00:15:02,480
takes hold just after one fifty five. Are ready a

300
00:15:02,519 --> 00:15:04,960
service badge and weigh in the twelve floor corridor, hot

301
00:15:04,960 --> 00:15:08,440
hammering with anticipation. The hall is empty, lined with shadows.

302
00:15:08,519 --> 00:15:11,000
The only sound the faint rattle of the ductruc. I

303
00:15:11,039 --> 00:15:14,320
step into the elevator, tapping my over eye coat. Lights flicker,

304
00:15:14,399 --> 00:15:17,279
the familiar panel sequence, whirring through the pointless options ge

305
00:15:17,399 --> 00:15:20,879
B two, one, and so on. When nothing changes, I

306
00:15:20,919 --> 00:15:23,919
swipe again, calling inspection mote. Then hit the twelve button,

307
00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:27,399
jabbing a finger nail against the sleek glass. The elevator hums,

308
00:15:27,440 --> 00:15:30,080
calling up, stopping at twelve without vanfoir, I let the

309
00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:34,039
doors close. Then, with a surge and a nod unsteady lurch,

310
00:15:34,159 --> 00:15:37,559
the floor indicator ticks twelve. Then a single ghostly thirteen

311
00:15:37,559 --> 00:15:40,320
flashes so quickly my eyes almost miss it. The panel

312
00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:42,759
never fully lights yet the elevator groans to a halt,

313
00:15:42,799 --> 00:15:46,159
as if impaled mid motion. An involuntary shiver tears through me.

314
00:15:46,840 --> 00:15:51,759
The eight tractual sharpens, silence swallows the cab. No movement outside,

315
00:15:51,799 --> 00:15:55,159
just the dizzing sense of weightlessness. Then the door slide open,

316
00:15:55,720 --> 00:15:59,279
but nothing at amiss outside the same pattern of carpeting,

317
00:15:59,320 --> 00:16:01,559
the same hallway that always marks the fourteen floor red

318
00:16:01,600 --> 00:16:04,559
runner Bland Marketing signs, the flickering light that's always an

319
00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:07,960
irow from burnot. There is no door marked thirteen, No

320
00:16:08,039 --> 00:16:11,600
discernible shift in architecture. Had I imagined the whole sequence.

321
00:16:12,240 --> 00:16:15,039
I steady myself against the frame, forced myself to breathe,

322
00:16:15,559 --> 00:16:19,320
returning to control my nerves trash. I tried the mysterious

323
00:16:19,360 --> 00:16:22,600
kikot on a dozen break room badge reads nothing, no beep,

324
00:16:22,679 --> 00:16:26,559
no change. Sometimes the sensor glows a dim, unhelpful orange,

325
00:16:26,559 --> 00:16:29,840
but there is no validation, no open door. After a while,

326
00:16:29,919 --> 00:16:33,120
paranoise seeps in, like water soaking through old brick. The

327
00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:35,799
chemeras always facing down. The length of the hole seems

328
00:16:35,799 --> 00:16:38,960
slightly askew. One appears to track me as I pass,

329
00:16:39,120 --> 00:16:42,720
its lens, glistening with manufactured indifference. The shadow is at

330
00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:44,600
The edges of the control room flicker when I move,

331
00:16:44,679 --> 00:16:46,840
as if the building itself is adjusting to my attention.

332
00:16:47,480 --> 00:16:50,720
I convince myself I'm tired, overwrought, over caffeinated, overdue for

333
00:16:50,799 --> 00:16:54,799
time off. But the sense of surveillance deepens. Every corner

334
00:16:54,840 --> 00:16:57,039
is an eye, every reflection of potential witness to something

335
00:16:57,039 --> 00:16:59,960
in the locks will never explain. Then a surprise to night.

336
00:17:00,039 --> 00:17:02,120
Nutes later, I find myself face to face with a

337
00:17:02,159 --> 00:17:05,680
senior manager well after midnight. She's younger than I'd expected,

338
00:17:05,759 --> 00:17:08,279
dressed in take attire rather than old guard suits, but

339
00:17:08,319 --> 00:17:12,640
her badge bristles with security clearance in network problems VPN glitches,

340
00:17:12,759 --> 00:17:14,680
she mutters. When I see her, tracing her way through

341
00:17:14,720 --> 00:17:18,680
the fourteen fours over annex, she is quick gathering her things,

342
00:17:18,720 --> 00:17:23,000
almost furtive. Did you need anything from security, ma'am, I

343
00:17:23,079 --> 00:17:26,200
ask a voice, even she shakes her head, eyes flicking

344
00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:29,920
past me. No, just needed logs for report temporary glitch.

345
00:17:30,519 --> 00:17:32,920
I follow her at a distance, curiosity peaued to see

346
00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:35,480
her peering into the stawlell doors, running her own badge

347
00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:38,160
on the panel, then glancing at her phone and perhaps

348
00:17:38,200 --> 00:17:39,960
at something else, and seen just off the edge of

349
00:17:39,960 --> 00:17:42,559
the light. She passes through the low be trailing a

350
00:17:42,599 --> 00:17:45,319
slim folder she tries to stow under her arm in

351
00:17:45,400 --> 00:17:48,440
her hurry its lips. She curses, then, not seeing me

352
00:17:48,480 --> 00:17:51,319
step forward, leaves it abandoned as she collates her other papers.

353
00:17:51,960 --> 00:17:54,799
I wait until she's gone, then pick it up inside

354
00:17:55,039 --> 00:17:57,519
four plans more detailed than anything in the maintenance behind

355
00:17:57,559 --> 00:18:00,920
her pages marked confidential, heavily redacted technical notes, and my

356
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:05,079
breath pausing the phrase service level selminus thirteen. No further explanation,

357
00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:07,799
but the annotation is stark placed between the twelfth and

358
00:18:07,839 --> 00:18:10,680
fourteen fours, A hashed and alcove mark doc sulliary lounge,

359
00:18:11,119 --> 00:18:14,720
a memoir with encountered lines, ones, legacy, axis, restricted use,

360
00:18:14,799 --> 00:18:18,519
master access or service level ID only. I snap images

361
00:18:18,519 --> 00:18:21,079
on my phone before returning the folder to Lost and Found.

362
00:18:21,799 --> 00:18:23,400
I work the rest of the shift with the sound

363
00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:26,319
of blood pounding in my ears. The pieces are assembling

364
00:18:26,359 --> 00:18:29,200
themselves around me. A arcs vanished people, official secrecy, and

365
00:18:29,240 --> 00:18:32,440
adore that, to my knowledge, nobody should even believe exists.

366
00:18:33,039 --> 00:18:35,880
Second guessing myself. As day lay after the dawn hand off,

367
00:18:36,440 --> 00:18:38,559
in the quiet of the utility archive, I paged her

368
00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:42,160
old blueprints yellowed, creased, annotated with the jagged handwriting of

369
00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:45,440
generations of engineers. There is an oblique note on adducting

370
00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:49,440
schematic half muted original break room thirteen c revised interior plan,

371
00:18:49,880 --> 00:18:51,880
though the teen is circle thin, cost out as if

372
00:18:51,880 --> 00:18:53,880
to avoid the very idea of a flow between twelve

373
00:18:53,880 --> 00:18:57,279
and fourteen more badge locks. I review the detailed list

374
00:18:57,279 --> 00:19:00,160
of staffish in master keys, some of them missing aim

375
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:02,720
show up. Jake, Tara, even Kirt with a card tier

376
00:19:02,759 --> 00:19:05,279
for a building wide access, are ready for their positions.

377
00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:08,680
All their last activity clusters around early a m. And

378
00:19:08,759 --> 00:19:11,759
always always a stop at the ghost floor. Heart heavy,

379
00:19:11,799 --> 00:19:15,160
I try to reason through the mounting evidence, such architecture,

380
00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:18,240
such planning, even such secrets. It all feels impossibly dramatic

381
00:19:18,279 --> 00:19:20,240
for a company that worries about tone of theft and

382
00:19:20,240 --> 00:19:24,200
email scams. But it is also real, far more substantial

383
00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:27,440
than rumor. Five weeks end with boldness, spawn of exhaustion,

384
00:19:27,599 --> 00:19:30,160
I slip out of uniform, pocketing the mysterious their team

385
00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:33,039
break room badge. I ride the elevator to twelve one

386
00:19:33,119 --> 00:19:36,160
last time before dawn. The stairwell, as ever, is chilled

387
00:19:36,160 --> 00:19:38,200
by a tongue of cold air and hidden from camera view.

388
00:19:38,839 --> 00:19:41,480
I listen somewhere below the buzzing of compressors, the kind

389
00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:44,400
of hush that suggests sent in its masking purpose. I

390
00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:47,400
run finger tips over blank wall. The paint is rougher.

391
00:19:47,480 --> 00:19:50,200
Here a texture of rectangles, just faintly discernible by the

392
00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:52,920
light of my phone. A badge reader is slightly different

393
00:19:52,920 --> 00:19:55,200
than elsewhere, its surface coated in a patterner of years,

394
00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:58,519
and seen blink stormant in the shadow between stairs. Swallowing

395
00:19:58,519 --> 00:20:00,559
my fear, I raise the stolen Kik God and press

396
00:20:00,559 --> 00:20:02,599
it to the reader. There is a delay, then a

397
00:20:02,599 --> 00:20:05,319
bloom of mute green light, not the cheerful chirp of

398
00:20:05,359 --> 00:20:08,839
most readers, but silent, steady glow. With effort, the curved

399
00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:12,759
door yields to my push, hinges groaning with fatigue, just billows.

400
00:20:12,839 --> 00:20:15,079
The air beyond, colder than the stairwell, untinged with the

401
00:20:15,079 --> 00:20:18,599
town of ancient adhesive, in something older, something metallic. I

402
00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:21,960
glance over my shoulder, heart racing the question hovers, have

403
00:20:22,039 --> 00:20:24,440
I violated an old joke? Or peel back olaye never

404
00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:27,079
meant to be disturbed. The opening is only a foot

405
00:20:27,079 --> 00:20:29,720
and half enough to slip through at the threshold, The

406
00:20:29,720 --> 00:20:32,359
air seems to vibrate with anticipation, as if the building

407
00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:35,519
itself is waiting to see if I'll cross over. I hesitate,

408
00:20:35,759 --> 00:20:37,720
one hand grip in the door, the other clutching my

409
00:20:37,759 --> 00:20:40,160
phone thum ready on the flashlight. I can, for the

410
00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:42,400
first time in years of working here, I am genuinely,

411
00:20:42,480 --> 00:20:45,000
deeply afraid of what lies past the margin of floor plans,

412
00:20:45,119 --> 00:20:47,799
past the reach of my badge and my rationality, And

413
00:20:47,960 --> 00:20:49,960
for the first time in a long launch stretch of

414
00:20:50,039 --> 00:20:52,640
endless nights, I cannot trust of the rituals the routines

415
00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:55,880
will keep me safe. I crossed the threshold as quietly

416
00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:58,720
as the protest and hinges would allow, Poles in my ears,

417
00:20:58,759 --> 00:21:00,880
careful to ez the doors shut behind me, letting it

418
00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:04,200
rest but not latch. The darkness inside was not total,

419
00:21:04,319 --> 00:21:06,319
but it was deep, distowed only by the thin blade

420
00:21:06,319 --> 00:21:08,400
of white from my phone's flask light, trembling a little

421
00:21:08,400 --> 00:21:11,359
in my hand. The beam sweat crossed ragged carpet, a

422
00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:14,279
low and colorless pile whose pattern was neither current nor retro,

423
00:21:14,559 --> 00:21:16,759
just as guarded as if someone had borrowed it from

424
00:21:16,759 --> 00:21:19,680
a relic of the nineteen eighties. A faint track, a

425
00:21:19,680 --> 00:21:22,319
path worn by years of pacing. Shoes stitched the dust

426
00:21:22,359 --> 00:21:24,880
in front of me. I paused, letting the light in

427
00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:27,519
my breathing settle, waiting for the sense of boundary to fade.

428
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:29,920
My skin prickled with the cold, a different cold than

429
00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:33,880
the twelve floor drafted, sharp and chemical. It wasn't good air, stagnant,

430
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:37,079
almost sire. The sense of size was difficult to gauge.

431
00:21:37,079 --> 00:21:39,000
My light seemed to get eaten by dart as faster

432
00:21:39,079 --> 00:21:41,359
than it shit. The flastlight small power, vanishing a few

433
00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:43,720
feet from the toe of my boot. I tried to

434
00:21:43,759 --> 00:21:47,079
orient myself any logic, and in north East all I

435
00:21:47,119 --> 00:21:50,599
had was the sound of nothing. I took four steps, cautious,

436
00:21:50,759 --> 00:21:52,720
feeling for the moment my leaf at might knock against

437
00:21:52,759 --> 00:21:56,079
dat chairs of forgotten furniture. Instead, the light hit a

438
00:21:56,079 --> 00:21:58,799
corner cheap break room tables. Their legs splayed a monusque,

439
00:21:58,839 --> 00:22:01,279
as if someone had dragged it in it. Anger chairs

440
00:22:01,319 --> 00:22:03,920
ringed the walls silent, their seat cracked in the patterns

441
00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:07,119
of lawn absence and sudden use. Against the far wall,

442
00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:09,960
A vending machine stooped in disgrace as glass age dimmed.

443
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:12,440
A looping logo for a diffunct color company, faintly visible

444
00:22:12,519 --> 00:22:16,920
underground under the machine calm. Another sound, small, irregular, perhaps

445
00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:20,240
the sigh of the HVAC, perhaps something else. I listened

446
00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:23,319
more closely, My attention flicked to the left. Or fluorescent

447
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:25,559
lighting at least a dozen years out of date, hanin

448
00:22:25,599 --> 00:22:29,000
off kelterictingles from a drop ceiling. Some tubes blinked life

449
00:22:29,119 --> 00:22:31,799
there like greenish and a little sick, barely illuminating. A

450
00:22:31,839 --> 00:22:34,559
series of war mounted security monitors clustered in a jury

451
00:22:34,599 --> 00:22:37,640
riefed to rate, clearly scavenged from different ears. The depth

452
00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:40,759
of the room beyond the monitors was impossible to judge.

453
00:22:40,839 --> 00:22:43,079
My steps kept drafting dust up over my shoes, but

454
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:45,559
prints clear and absurdly bright compared to the gray and

455
00:22:45,599 --> 00:22:48,880
broken cross that lay everywhere else. The room's design was

456
00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:51,319
familiar in only the most generic quay A refrigerated the

457
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:53,359
kind with the handle split at the top, A water

458
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:55,839
crooler that looked faintly yellowed and dry, or countercrowded with

459
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:59,160
smashed mugs. But the accreted layer of years, or at

460
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:01,599
least the illusion of them, warped the edges of every object,

461
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:04,720
made everything look faded. Twice over. I tried the fridge

462
00:23:04,759 --> 00:23:07,519
door jitterate half way, expecting some child as pranka blast

463
00:23:07,559 --> 00:23:10,359
of cold pack hair or a plastic spider. It yielded

464
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:12,759
with a reluctant crack, smelling only of old cool and

465
00:23:12,799 --> 00:23:14,839
a mold empty shelves except for in an open kin

466
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:17,599
of soup. Its label cled like a burn flag. The

467
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:21,039
water cooler dispenser moved at my touch, rocking slightly hollow.

468
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:24,880
I scanned the walls, hunting for further clues. The fluorescent

469
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:27,079
tubes over the monitors gave just enough light for me

470
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:28,799
to read some of the sheets stuck with yellow and

471
00:23:28,799 --> 00:23:31,119
tape beneath them, handred and in a spidery pen. Clean

472
00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:34,400
up after use nineteen ninety two out of order maintenance scheduled.

473
00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:36,839
I leave the break room as he found it. Most

474
00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:39,799
odd was a tight sheet corners briddle reading level of thirteen,

475
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:42,839
staff use only, do not prot door. Its font was

476
00:23:42,839 --> 00:23:45,480
the sort used by light min as eighties typewriters. A

477
00:23:45,559 --> 00:23:47,599
shiver round threw me not of coal, but of the

478
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:50,920
sense of time, immerred. All my years in building new doors,

479
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,839
new textpecs card reader over holes for the last decade,

480
00:23:53,839 --> 00:23:56,559
and here behind eligible credentials lay a room that belonged

481
00:23:56,559 --> 00:23:59,000
to no era at all. The vending machines keep it

482
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:02,200
at half. The numbers worn probably by board employees decades gone,

483
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:04,440
displayed a message it's back at I'll see, blinking the

484
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:09,000
phrase welcome staff. In monospace, the wall of monitors buzzed

485
00:24:09,039 --> 00:24:11,680
at a low frequency. Some screens lost to static, others

486
00:24:11,759 --> 00:24:15,160
hazy but live, showing grainy off angle views. A stairbell

487
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:17,920
landing with no identifying marks. A cube field of gray

488
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:21,240
paneling and flickering computer screens. A break room I didn't recognize,

489
00:24:21,279 --> 00:24:23,240
but with a brassy wall clock stuck at two. Seven

490
00:24:23,319 --> 00:24:26,079
hands are moving, dust pulled at the bottom rim an

491
00:24:26,079 --> 00:24:29,279
acrid odor. Pinch my nose, at my feet. A tangled

492
00:24:29,279 --> 00:24:31,680
pile of lineyards and security badges lay as are dropped

493
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:34,119
in a hurry. Most were faded at the edges. The

494
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:37,240
id photos blurred by age. Their name's not immediately familiar.

495
00:24:37,799 --> 00:24:40,880
A crouch picking up a badge by instinct. No logo,

496
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:44,240
just a number of thirteen twenty two T fissure systems,

497
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:49,599
another thirteen forty seven K more accounts below the heaps

498
00:24:49,599 --> 00:24:52,400
out a stack of dog eared papers covered with frantic scroll.

499
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:55,799
I picked one up, hands now shaking out. Try no windows,

500
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:58,799
no way out, elevators, skips stairs, loop, locked in. If

501
00:24:58,799 --> 00:25:01,240
anyone finds this not tried to leave when the lights

502
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:04,440
flickered to him. Behind me, a sophametallic clung, a shift

503
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,039
of something at the edge of darkness, perhaps a chair sliding,

504
00:25:07,279 --> 00:25:10,480
maybe just metal settling. I spawn the phone beams, spas

505
00:25:10,599 --> 00:25:14,359
me across the dirty floor, hot suddenly a metrope. Nothing moved,

506
00:25:15,039 --> 00:25:17,039
the door was still a jar, behind me by a sliver.

507
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,680
I swallowed, my skin, prickled with the urge to rawn,

508
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:23,400
but something stronger kept me rooted to maybe a stubborness,

509
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:25,359
like the kind that had driven generations to poker, to

510
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:28,480
mark switches and odd glitches. Or maybe I just needed

511
00:25:28,519 --> 00:25:32,480
an answer. I tracked the monitors, stepping forward. Each flickered

512
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:35,480
through alternating angles, a patrick of abandoned looking spaces, and

513
00:25:35,519 --> 00:25:37,880
another stay will wear for a second, I could have sworn.

514
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:40,200
I glimpsed a backpack slumped against a riser, and then

515
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:43,160
another shot, looking directly at a conference table, but the

516
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:45,960
table was covered in paperwork, all but impossible to focus,

517
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,079
like an after image. Half glimpsed, then lost as the

518
00:25:48,079 --> 00:25:51,480
feet shimmered with interference. A monitor at the end marked

519
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:53,640
a bree k thirteen C A moon and clumsy digital

520
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:55,960
text eliminated part of the very room. I stood in

521
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,799
the vending corner and the empty chairs. I saw my

522
00:25:58,799 --> 00:26:02,359
ouncel wet, tiny and other focus shifting between flickers. I

523
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:06,160
half laughed, uncertain, am I on every monitor? Is this

524
00:26:06,279 --> 00:26:09,880
just another prank? An elaborate old Halloween? Sat up my eyes,

525
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:12,960
waded the coal. The milky reel enough and the air

526
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:16,519
didn't feel like it had circulated for months. Tiny details

527
00:26:16,519 --> 00:26:19,119
caught me. A chewed pencil bit and cleaned through, rolled

528
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:21,680
up to the edge of a vent. A ziplocked bag

529
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:25,640
of stale cereal water bottles, half emptied, scattered among the badges.

530
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:29,119
A notepad on a table one corner, badly scorched where

531
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:32,319
someone had torn off page after page. The cover read

532
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:35,559
simply shift note kurt. I flipped a page, feeling the

533
00:26:35,599 --> 00:26:39,119
indentations left by harsh agitated writing. Must not sleep, light

534
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:41,519
blink sequals, door shuffle, lost track of time at the rest,

535
00:26:41,519 --> 00:26:43,440
trailed off in what looked like a scratched attempt to

536
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:46,119
keep writing after the pen drite up beneath the note,

537
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:49,359
but waited a single primitive voice recorder tape based its surface,

538
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:53,759
tacky battery cover missing. I hesitated, then press play at

539
00:26:53,799 --> 00:26:56,759
first only static, then a voice, a man's horse and urgent.

540
00:26:56,839 --> 00:26:59,160
In forty eight hours by my watch, always won't a line.

541
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:01,839
Can hear someone else moving a think, but doors keep changing.

542
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:04,119
Don't trust the elevator. If you hear the cleaning crew,

543
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:06,440
do not go with them. They don't sound right. A

544
00:27:06,519 --> 00:27:10,319
muffle thumb, then further static in my periphery. Light flickered

545
00:27:10,319 --> 00:27:13,279
on a monitor, movement in a corridor, someone's shadow crossing.

546
00:27:13,839 --> 00:27:16,400
My mind raced at I triggered a motion detected by entering.

547
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:19,480
I stood motionless, training my ear for footsteps, for even

548
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,480
a trace of breath, not my own. The silence pressed back,

549
00:27:22,599 --> 00:27:25,000
broken only by the occasional rattle of the ceiling. The

550
00:27:25,039 --> 00:27:27,799
ancient settling grown as the building expanded or contracted against

551
00:27:27,799 --> 00:27:31,119
the cold. I tested the vending machine, punching a random

552
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:35,160
button out of frustration or desperation. Nothing happened. The dog

553
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:37,720
clunk echoed, as if I trigger motion deep in the walls.

554
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:40,319
Had any one been in here since? These note paths,

555
00:27:40,519 --> 00:27:43,680
these badges, these water bottles, had been left on the

556
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:46,240
wall above the badges. Almost lost in the general clotter

557
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:48,640
was a hand drawn map lines as much guesswork and

558
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:52,599
panic as cartography, always liaping, doors marked with excess at

559
00:27:52,599 --> 00:27:56,279
the mate's bottom, jagged words, this is not all viighty. Someone,

560
00:27:56,279 --> 00:27:58,359
perhaps Kurt, perhaps one of the others, had tried to

561
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:01,599
make sense of the space. Arrows darted around corners, some

562
00:28:01,759 --> 00:28:05,119
tracing back on themselves, notes about wrong turns, a door

563
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:08,480
to nowhere, and stairwell sets. My breath clouded in front

564
00:28:08,519 --> 00:28:10,680
of me. I hadn't noticed at first, but the temperature

565
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,680
here was dropping. Was it the a track or insulation

566
00:28:13,799 --> 00:28:17,480
never repaired. I started the ceiling, expecting to glimpse duct work,

567
00:28:17,519 --> 00:28:19,480
but it was seal tied pave a stain tiles pressed

568
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:21,079
to get the safe for a single panel, as key

569
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:23,000
as if some one had once forced their way into

570
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:25,640
the coal space. I moved toward an inner door at

571
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:27,400
the side of the room, steel handle worn to a

572
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:31,279
dull shine, letters above flaking paint, nearly erased street a lounge.

573
00:28:31,799 --> 00:28:34,599
My hand hesitated at the knob be yond a soft

574
00:28:34,599 --> 00:28:39,720
tapping again irregular, insistent, not mechanical, flesh or maybe not.

575
00:28:40,559 --> 00:28:43,119
I pressed my ear to the door. Faint movements, some

576
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:46,519
one breathing or draft. I let my own breath out, slowly,

577
00:28:46,799 --> 00:28:49,680
careful not to fog the panel, heart beating in my throat.

578
00:28:49,759 --> 00:28:52,440
I twisted the handle the door ground as it opened,

579
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:54,920
swinging just far enough to let me peer in. It

580
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:57,920
was another room, slightly smaller, dominated by a bathed couch

581
00:28:57,920 --> 00:28:59,920
and a shelf lined with old binders. The color faded

582
00:29:00,079 --> 00:29:03,039
to uniform gray. Paper spilled off the seat, and the

583
00:29:03,039 --> 00:29:05,200
single lamp glowed from one corner, powered by a wy

584
00:29:05,319 --> 00:29:07,480
threaded through a hole in the wall, its sores impossible

585
00:29:07,519 --> 00:29:11,440
to see. Something darted across my field of vision. I recoiled,

586
00:29:11,559 --> 00:29:13,960
catching only a blur human, I thought, or close to it,

587
00:29:14,039 --> 00:29:17,759
Pale and quick, it ducked behind the couch. My chest

588
00:29:17,799 --> 00:29:20,440
hammered for a moment, I let the urge to flee,

589
00:29:20,519 --> 00:29:23,559
rage in my veins. Then a sound, a low scrape whisper,

590
00:29:23,759 --> 00:29:26,039
just over the edge of hearing a help. I moved

591
00:29:26,039 --> 00:29:29,160
into the room, keeping my hands visible, voice trembling, be firm.

592
00:29:29,799 --> 00:29:34,000
Who's there? No answer? At first, Rustling behind the couch,

593
00:29:34,759 --> 00:29:37,559
I waited, refusing to advance. The sickly lamp burn matching

594
00:29:37,599 --> 00:29:40,720
the cold sweat breaking on my galp. Slowly, I had rose,

595
00:29:40,759 --> 00:29:44,680
hair tangled, features gaunt, but unmistakably impossibly at Jake's. His

596
00:29:44,759 --> 00:29:47,480
eyes squinted against the light, skin pale enough to seem unreal.

597
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:50,920
I tried to keep the shock off my face. Jake

598
00:29:51,039 --> 00:29:53,799
for mighty, He frowned, as if dredging the name from

599
00:29:53,839 --> 00:29:57,359
deep under water. You shouldn't be here, he stammered, voiced raspy,

600
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:01,000
and murred. What is this place? I asked, soften now?

601
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:03,839
He nodded at the ceiling at The monitor is visible

602
00:30:03,839 --> 00:30:05,960
on the far wall. It doesn't let you go if

603
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:07,720
you badge in wrong, if the door lets you, don't

604
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:10,839
take the elevator, don't follow the lights. Are you the

605
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:14,440
only one here? I asked. Jake just shook his head,

606
00:30:14,599 --> 00:30:17,680
finger pressed her lips as darting sideways, as if expecting interruption.

607
00:30:18,359 --> 00:30:21,759
He shrank against the cushions, knees drawn up. Sometimes I

608
00:30:21,799 --> 00:30:24,519
hear others. Sometimes they sound like people, Sometimes they don't.

609
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:28,119
I realized my hand was still gripping the latine breakroom

610
00:30:28,119 --> 00:30:31,160
badge so tightly the plastic cut into my palm. Behind me,

611
00:30:31,279 --> 00:30:33,839
A dull, rhyming thump, agan perhaps the mechanical hobbied of

612
00:30:33,839 --> 00:30:36,640
the building, perhaps someone or something else trying to find

613
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,160
a way in in the dusty lamp light. Jake's face

614
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:41,000
was half in real, but the pleading in his voice

615
00:30:41,039 --> 00:30:44,279
was not. You have to go, he whispered. If it

616
00:30:44,319 --> 00:30:46,400
knows you're looking, it finds ways to keep you here.

617
00:30:46,519 --> 00:30:49,880
That's what happened through he trailed off. I backed away

618
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,119
toward the open door, mind spinning, trying to recapture logic,

619
00:30:53,279 --> 00:30:55,799
my safe scaffolding of routine, but it all fell away.

620
00:30:55,839 --> 00:30:59,519
In the not quite silence, the thumping stopped. I looked

621
00:30:59,559 --> 00:31:01,680
at Jake, trapped and cowed by failure, and made myself

622
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:04,000
a silent promise. I would get out, and if I could,

623
00:31:04,039 --> 00:31:06,599
I would get him out to I turned and slipped

624
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:08,759
back through the break room, passed the heap of badges,

625
00:31:08,839 --> 00:31:11,319
passed the burnt notepad and the humming monitors, back to

626
00:31:11,359 --> 00:31:14,839
the door I'd left slightly ajar reres, shallow, feeling watched

627
00:31:14,839 --> 00:31:17,400
by the screens, by whatever surveillance this place still possessed.

628
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:20,279
I slipped out, letting the door sail almost noiselessly behind me.

629
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:22,759
Whatever this was, I had stepped on to a path

630
00:31:22,799 --> 00:31:25,359
from which there might be no easy return. And as

631
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:27,400
I leaned my back against the cool stairwell wall, the

632
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:29,880
thirteen break room badge pressed to my chest, I knew that,

633
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:31,599
for the first time in all my years, I was

634
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,519
in the building's domain, not my own. The stairwell seemed

635
00:31:34,559 --> 00:31:36,440
to inhale with me. As I pressed my back against

636
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:39,400
its wall and listened for pursuit. There was no sound

637
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:41,680
to not Jake's ragged breathing, not the scrape of that

638
00:31:41,759 --> 00:31:45,160
old couch, no footsteps on tire. My pulse thudded just

639
00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:47,839
beneath my collar. The weight of what I just witnessed

640
00:31:47,839 --> 00:31:50,200
to Jake faded in ferle. This locked away full burily

641
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:53,160
had time to register every instinct, screened to get as

642
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:55,359
far up or down the stairs as possible, returned to

643
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:58,279
ground level and call for help, But discipline that all

644
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:01,640
night guard's habit rained and panic. I forced slow breaths

645
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:03,519
and peered up at the smear metal door, letting the

646
00:32:03,559 --> 00:32:07,079
details imprint themselves. Worn badge reader paint chipped along the frame,

647
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,480
a scuff mark made by a right heel always turning

648
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,160
against the jam. None of this had appeared on any

649
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:15,200
maintenance lock. It wasn't supposed to be here at all.

650
00:32:15,839 --> 00:32:18,079
I stepped down a level, shoes whispering, and the rubber

651
00:32:18,119 --> 00:32:20,440
trades my funds light toned as low as possible as

652
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,519
some camera human or otherwise see. The stairwall was narrow,

653
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,079
not the wide and well kept passageways of public floors,

654
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:30,000
but tight utility access lines of condor crowding to corners overhead.

655
00:32:30,599 --> 00:32:32,920
My badge, a harmless shield for years, suddenly felt hot

656
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:35,039
in my pocket, as if carrying it, resmarking me for

657
00:32:35,079 --> 00:32:38,799
follow up investigation. On impulse, I pressed myself into shadow

658
00:32:38,839 --> 00:32:40,920
and pulled out the confiscated folder I had returned doll

659
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:43,319
at all lost and fanned, but never actually surrendered to

660
00:32:43,319 --> 00:32:46,240
Coppet DULCEA of what the manager had left behind. I

661
00:32:46,279 --> 00:32:49,160
thumbed through grainy floor plans highlighted in yellow, the redacted

662
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:53,119
security memos, and the ne legacy Pusnell retentioness Amnis thirteen

663
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,880
must remain isolated, all exceptions reviewed monthly. My leg bounced

664
00:32:56,920 --> 00:33:00,000
with nervous energy. Monthly reviews for a faw never agnoited,

665
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:02,920
a breakroom never discussed, and a cluster of people who

666
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:06,799
disappeared from my blue lit world. I needed proof more

667
00:33:06,799 --> 00:33:10,119
than screen grabs and anxious droodles in my notebook. Before

668
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:12,519
I left the stairwell, I composed myself in snap cover

669
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:14,799
photos on my phone. The badge reader of the door,

670
00:33:14,839 --> 00:33:16,599
the ruined the team break room label in the geek

671
00:33:16,599 --> 00:33:19,559
out the cryptic memos from the folder. I send Lora's

672
00:33:19,599 --> 00:33:22,279
versions to my own cloud drive careful. I didn't know

673
00:33:22,279 --> 00:33:25,319
who monitored network activity, but Cheris Corp. Employed people more

674
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:29,039
paranoid than me. Steadying myself, I risked opening the stairwell

675
00:33:29,039 --> 00:33:32,200
door to the fourteenth floor, the same hallway, unfrilled, sterile

676
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:35,079
and humming fake whiff of ammonia. At the junction, I

677
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:36,960
paused at the camera mounted HIH above the door. It

678
00:33:37,079 --> 00:33:41,000
red like gloads Daddy. I passed beneath, projecting calm, reviewing

679
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,079
my alibi. Some unrwund the feed, just a security guard

680
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:47,440
checking maintenance, responding to an alarm. Nothing to see. I

681
00:33:47,519 --> 00:33:50,359
drifted to an empty conference room, ducking inside and double

682
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:52,039
checking that its glossed doors were a pick with their

683
00:33:52,079 --> 00:33:55,920
blinds raw. My thoughts tumbled. Jake had spoken of the

684
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:58,200
floor as a trap, and now I wondered how many

685
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:01,240
others had stumbled here, Thinking themselves clever or just unlucky.

686
00:34:01,839 --> 00:34:04,039
The pile of badges the burn note, but evidence of

687
00:34:04,039 --> 00:34:06,559
people deposited here because they drawn too much scrutiny, or

688
00:34:06,599 --> 00:34:09,800
known too much, or perhaps merely because some administrative threshold

689
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,519
had flagged them at the wrong time, And no auxiliary

690
00:34:12,519 --> 00:34:16,239
break room, no uncirculated memos for the night answers tumbled

691
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:19,039
in my mind, But so did the questions who curated

692
00:34:19,079 --> 00:34:21,880
the badge access, who watched the feed in that side

693
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,599
room with the monitors stitched together, blank, grainy views of

694
00:34:24,599 --> 00:34:27,760
somewhere and some one else's despair? Most of all, what

695
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,599
was buried behind those redactive lines and cryptic directives? And

696
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:33,840
was it personal? Now that I trespassed ac of control?

697
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:36,280
Hands trembling from cold, I a lie to myself. I

698
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:38,360
checked the bad's locks leading up to my trip below.

699
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:41,559
My badge now reported a new level of service level thirteen.

700
00:34:41,559 --> 00:34:43,639
It hucked into the logs at two seventeen a m.

701
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:46,400
Right alongside that same suite of logs for tart, Jake

702
00:34:46,599 --> 00:34:49,280
and others who never left the system had noticed me

703
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,599
as an anomaly. My former invisibility had vanished. The instant

704
00:34:52,599 --> 00:34:55,719
my curiosity tipped into action A dread certainty pulled in

705
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:58,320
my stomach. It would not go unoticed for long. I

706
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:00,519
found the land line, picked it up and dialed the

707
00:35:00,559 --> 00:35:02,360
only number I knew for each other, one used for

708
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:06,079
overnight emergencies. No answer, only voicemail. The beet bridle in

709
00:35:06,079 --> 00:35:09,039
my ear. I hesitated, then hung up without speaking, not

710
00:35:09,159 --> 00:35:11,360
wanting my own voice on a record I couldn't control.

711
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:15,400
The minutes crawled by, I alternated between pacing control and

712
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:18,599
scrutinizing the screens. There were odd flock as, feels of

713
00:35:18,599 --> 00:35:20,559
movement just at the periphery, but never where I could

714
00:35:20,599 --> 00:35:23,519
pin them down. In one camera view, a janitor's cart

715
00:35:23,559 --> 00:35:25,960
stood just outside the elevator, but no one reached to

716
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:28,719
push it away. Another angle showed the elevator's door stuttering

717
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,280
on thirteen, in a frame lost to static. When the

718
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:34,480
shift ended, I left nothing to chance. I stayed late,

719
00:35:34,559 --> 00:35:36,840
clearing desktop logs and hiding my scribbled note put an

720
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:39,480
event behind a security desk behind a false panel no

721
00:35:39,519 --> 00:35:42,440
one but facilities would discover. I left the building through

722
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:44,679
the main entrance, keikot press flat to my pumps so

723
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:47,519
the scanner wouldn't read it by accident, as I emerged

724
00:35:47,519 --> 00:35:50,079
into the chill dawn. Instinct kept me from looking back.

725
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:53,239
I'd always dismissed the cities quiet as comforting, but now,

726
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:55,480
for the first time, the silence seemed to threaten rather

727
00:35:55,519 --> 00:35:57,280
than rear. Sheer, like a mouth waiting to swallow me

728
00:35:57,280 --> 00:35:59,880
if I turned the wrong way. Ires later or sleeper

729
00:36:00,039 --> 00:36:03,119
fused to come. My mind upon old badge numbers, static

730
00:36:03,199 --> 00:36:07,239
choked voices, the hollow eyes of Jakin, that impossible lounge restless,

731
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:09,679
I returned to the evidence on my phone. All the

732
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:12,199
images had uploaded as planned, except the ones showing the

733
00:36:12,199 --> 00:36:15,159
stairwell badge reader. Those files were corrupted, flashing black and

734
00:36:15,199 --> 00:36:18,280
white bars instead of showing the proper stickered rectangle. The

735
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:22,599
memo images, however, were intact. The legacy axis restricted all

736
00:36:22,599 --> 00:36:26,360
locks reviewed monthly compliance required. It was only late afternoon

737
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:29,559
when my phone vibrated with an email alert. No sender,

738
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:34,599
just a subject mandatory administrative leave effective immediately terrorst facility security.

739
00:36:35,079 --> 00:36:39,440
The body was a polite dismissal, no signature. My building badge,

740
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:42,960
according to the message, was already deactivated. I shut off

741
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:46,199
the phone, pulled the battery, not trusting airplane mode. I

742
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:48,719
closed the blinds sat against the wall and waited for

743
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:51,119
something to happen and knock, a phone call, an email

744
00:36:51,159 --> 00:36:54,960
from a real person. Nothing came. I imagined what Jake's

745
00:36:55,039 --> 00:36:57,880
days had been like before the break, small routines, coffee favorites,

746
00:36:58,159 --> 00:37:01,440
night rounds and Coker banter, the sudden switch, the elevator

747
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:04,239
stopping entranced, or a badge pin waking the system's attention.

748
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:07,199
How long had he waited to be found? How many

749
00:37:07,199 --> 00:37:09,599
others were living on that edge? Week after Amus tw

750
00:37:09,639 --> 00:37:13,119
mild week there would be no record, no next of kinnotices,

751
00:37:13,639 --> 00:37:16,320
just vanished names in the silent, cycling anguish under flickering

752
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,480
fluorescent lights. I returned to Churston the only way I

753
00:37:19,559 --> 00:37:23,679
coot through records, online forums, LinkedIn searches. No sign of

754
00:37:23,679 --> 00:37:27,679
tar occur. Jake's social free were abandoned months ago, Birthday

755
00:37:27,679 --> 00:37:32,119
messages from relatives unreturned. Even the company directory quietly eliminated

756
00:37:32,119 --> 00:37:35,760
their names, resumes, prior job titles. Their absence was all

757
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:38,840
that marked them out, drip drip of memory, edited by silence.

758
00:37:39,599 --> 00:37:42,400
The next night was harder. I stared at the Fatine

759
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:45,039
break room Kikard, rubbing the embossed numbers until they left

760
00:37:45,079 --> 00:37:48,760
in imprint in my skin, dredd thickened. I found myself

761
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:50,840
standing at my front window, convinced that a car idling

762
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:53,280
two floors below was watching me, its head lumps fixed.

763
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:56,639
I ducked from view, a rookie mistake, then caught myself

764
00:37:56,679 --> 00:37:59,960
and tried to steady my breathing. Rationality demanded more, Ever

765
00:38:00,119 --> 00:38:03,039
andce paranoise, said ron, but I still hadn't found closure.

766
00:38:03,199 --> 00:38:06,519
Only Escalatian sleep finally found me around dawn, but it

767
00:38:06,559 --> 00:38:09,719
was a shallow, fractured rests crowded with dreams. I was

768
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:12,519
always walking the Churi's corridors, only to have the wall shift,

769
00:38:12,519 --> 00:38:14,960
the stairwells turn into loops, no door. Returning to the

770
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,840
lobby in the dream, faces called out dike tra voices echoing,

771
00:38:19,079 --> 00:38:21,079
don't bitge in at night, don't follow the red light.

772
00:38:21,679 --> 00:38:24,760
I awoke with a plan. Fear was closing in. Yes,

773
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:28,159
but so was certainty. The company wouldn't risk exposure. They

774
00:38:28,199 --> 00:38:31,920
would want plausible deniability in silence. If the thirteen break

775
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:34,639
room was an old and traceable piece of legacy infrastructure,

776
00:38:34,639 --> 00:38:36,760
a system for casting out the inconvenient, they hare to

777
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:40,159
maintain it quietly, but absolutely I would not stay quiet.

778
00:38:40,679 --> 00:38:42,719
I printed copies of my photos to hard copy and

779
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:44,679
mailed them to myself, a cousin, and a friend who

780
00:38:44,679 --> 00:38:47,320
owed me a favor. I wrote a note, cryptic but

781
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:49,559
clear that if I vanished, it was not an accident.

782
00:38:50,119 --> 00:38:53,400
And then I began making phone calls. All went unanswered

783
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:56,519
or routed to generic mail boxes. At noon, and knock

784
00:38:56,559 --> 00:38:58,239
at my door startled me awake from a nap I

785
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:01,440
hadn't realized i'd taken. I opened it to find two people,

786
00:39:01,599 --> 00:39:04,559
one in a company branded facility's windbreaker, the other older

787
00:39:04,599 --> 00:39:07,480
with a badge identifying him only as corporate security visitor.

788
00:39:08,159 --> 00:39:11,360
Neither introduced themselves by name. They were courteous, if a

789
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:14,559
little too rehearsed. We're following up about some anomalies on

790
00:39:14,599 --> 00:39:17,519
your last shift. The wind breaker explained a few system

791
00:39:17,639 --> 00:39:19,719
errors were obligated to review in person, but I don't

792
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:23,000
have access to those files. Allied arms folded across my chest,

793
00:39:23,599 --> 00:39:27,480
he smiled, non committal. Building's policy standard review after take

794
00:39:27,519 --> 00:39:30,440
clitches and critical infrastructure. Your badge was decommissioned for now,

795
00:39:30,519 --> 00:39:33,039
just so sopee. The older one never looked at me,

796
00:39:33,079 --> 00:39:35,440
but scanned the apartment, his eyes resting briefly on the

797
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:38,559
package of printed images, then moving elsewhere. We'd like to

798
00:39:38,559 --> 00:39:41,559
collect your security notebooks in any company devices, said the

799
00:39:41,599 --> 00:39:44,400
first one. I feigned confusion, pointing out I'd left my

800
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:47,119
look book at work, which wasn't true. I nodded to

801
00:39:47,199 --> 00:39:48,840
the desk by the door, inviting them to see for

802
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:52,119
themselves with forced patients, the rifle through a folder of

803
00:39:52,119 --> 00:39:54,679
olver seats, ignoring the pile of junk mail, then handed

804
00:39:54,679 --> 00:39:58,440
me a sheet my official voluntary separation agreement, complete with

805
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:02,039
a polite nondisclosure lying near the bottom sign Here the

806
00:40:02,039 --> 00:40:05,199
Windbreaker's aid for hr you're no longer responsible for any

807
00:40:05,199 --> 00:40:08,719
hourly incidences of this morning A cold certainty to cold.

808
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:12,960
I'd been marked. I was not staff any more. When

809
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:15,280
they left, a breeze hit chilled by some malfunctioning vent.

810
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:18,320
The doors latch clicked as if by itself. I noticed,

811
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:20,000
as I gathered up the contract to lock in the

812
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,199
safe that one of the visitors had pocketed a kikoat

813
00:40:22,199 --> 00:40:24,800
I had left on the side table, a swap perhaps,

814
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:27,559
or just caution. I spent the afternoon in the next

815
00:40:27,599 --> 00:40:30,719
reading the documents i'd smuggled at sitting in the half

816
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:34,519
dark the story became clearer. Their service Level thirteen designation

817
00:40:34,599 --> 00:40:36,840
data from the early nineties, part of a so called

818
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:40,239
behavioral risk response, an internal project with bland corporate euphemism

819
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:44,000
hiding its intention. There were pages titled personnel realignment protocol,

820
00:40:44,079 --> 00:40:47,360
breakroom thirteen, checklists for access denial, even a blurry a

821
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:50,039
caption polaroid of a man in a blazer staring toward

822
00:40:50,079 --> 00:40:53,159
a fixed bright light. The annotations grew more cryptic the

823
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:57,400
deeper I read broom alignment procedure maintained electromagnetic isolation monitor

824
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:02,440
for unsanctioned returns unsanctioned returns. How many, ever made it out?

825
00:41:03,119 --> 00:41:06,000
I spent IROs trying to reconstruct time lines, names cross

826
00:41:06,039 --> 00:41:09,880
referenced in old newsletters, EMIL archives, staff directories from years past.

827
00:41:10,679 --> 00:41:12,280
It was enough to make out a mournful pattern of

828
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:14,920
slow culling of outliers, each followed by vacant, faceless slot

829
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:18,320
left behind. Two days after my forced leave, I noticed

830
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:21,199
the restlessess that had always accompanied unsolved mysteries was replaced

831
00:41:21,199 --> 00:41:24,159
by an almost expectant dread. In the hush before evening,

832
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:26,599
the feeling returned of being watched, as if woven into

833
00:41:26,599 --> 00:41:29,599
the silence. I saw in the bathroom mirror a faint

834
00:41:29,599 --> 00:41:31,960
starter in my reflection, a lag between my own movement

835
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:34,679
and the image. Brief but chilling. It looked for half

836
00:41:34,679 --> 00:41:37,079
a heartbeat, like the glitch in the elevator camera, skipping

837
00:41:37,079 --> 00:41:40,320
frames and returning me a stranger. My rational side rebelled,

838
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:42,239
and yet the fandom make behind my eyes lingered through

839
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:45,239
the weak. I dreamed again of the Breckkerm's blue shadows,

840
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:48,559
tape recorders crying out warnings, bags of hue, pencils, courts, burned,

841
00:41:48,599 --> 00:41:52,119
notepad heavy in my chest. Sometimes I heard muffled by

842
00:41:52,119 --> 00:41:54,519
the hum of my decade old refrigerator, the same mechanistic

843
00:41:54,599 --> 00:41:56,960
drone i'd come to associate with sleepless two zero and

844
00:41:57,079 --> 00:41:59,639
essen the building of rorescent undercurrent with the human edge.

845
00:42:00,159 --> 00:42:03,320
Sleep did not help. I woke before dawn, nurse and

846
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:06,159
spully if there was a window to uncover more before

847
00:42:06,159 --> 00:42:09,000
I became fully invisible. It was shrinking. I left my

848
00:42:09,039 --> 00:42:11,280
building and crossed the city to a neighborhood coffee shop

849
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:14,320
I chosen for its lack of security cameras. The manager

850
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:16,840
of part time philosophy student had met in passing didn't

851
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,079
ask why I was there at six siery m hunched

852
00:42:19,119 --> 00:42:21,920
over a laptop with a stack of batted notes. I

853
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:24,960
plugged in, created an encrypted drive, and began writing everything

854
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:28,039
I knew, dates, spaces, badge logs, what Jake had taught

855
00:42:28,039 --> 00:42:30,239
me in the half light. I added the names from

856
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:32,880
the pile of badges, the memos, hinting at legacy of retention,

857
00:42:33,039 --> 00:42:35,320
even the camera corks and static in the logs, as

858
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:38,000
far back as I could remember. When I left the

859
00:42:38,079 --> 00:42:40,360
gray Sedan idol near the curb, tail pips sending up

860
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,519
a stream of white exhaust, I kept walking, not making

861
00:42:43,559 --> 00:42:47,039
eye contact. Two streets over, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

862
00:42:47,519 --> 00:42:50,039
A new email had slipped through my junk filter. The

863
00:42:50,079 --> 00:42:53,800
subject re employee exit brief Survey. It looked official, but

864
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:56,039
the body was blank, safe for one line a question

865
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:58,639
a US still in possession of property marked break room thirteen,

866
00:42:59,159 --> 00:43:02,119
no signature, no company logo. I thought of the key

867
00:43:02,159 --> 00:43:04,039
kout at home, the one that pulsed with versigual and

868
00:43:04,079 --> 00:43:06,000
ease every time I brushed near it to my desk drawer.

869
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:08,840
I deleted the message, but that did nothing to erase

870
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:11,559
the worry. The city, for all its bustle, felt then

871
00:43:12,159 --> 00:43:14,280
crossing the avenue, I saw a woman in a cherish

872
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:16,800
leonard step behind a newspaper, kisk calm when I turned

873
00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:19,800
the corner, someone who had once gone missing, or just

874
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:23,119
another exhausted drone. There was an unreality to the morning,

875
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,239
bright with new sun but still cold with threat. Back

876
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:28,519
up my apartment, I sorted through old past stops and

877
00:43:28,559 --> 00:43:32,519
letters for more attachments, but nothing further arrived, no contacts,

878
00:43:32,679 --> 00:43:35,559
no further attempts at collection. It was as if by

879
00:43:35,559 --> 00:43:37,760
removing me from the shift's schedule and taking my badge,

880
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:40,360
the corporation expected the well to correct itself, to erase

881
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:44,639
my presence entirely. The dreams, however, did not subside. Each

882
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:47,800
night I cycled through the same distress and imagery, shuddering stairwells,

883
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:51,360
flickering lights, breay crimsone impossibly long and arrow, Jake's face

884
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:54,360
appearing and vanishing in the corners. Once I dreamt of

885
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:56,480
the vending machine, its display now replaced by my own

886
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:59,920
employee number Pulsey and green. For weeks I lived suspended,

887
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:02,039
neither in nor out of the world I'd known, adrift

888
00:44:02,079 --> 00:44:04,960
from Serift's routines, yet still glued to the old system.

889
00:44:05,039 --> 00:44:09,079
Logs had downloaded. Some days I'd receive voicemail's unknown collar,

890
00:44:09,199 --> 00:44:12,719
one ring, then silence, sometimes attacks half a word long

891
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:16,320
safe door. On an overcast afternoon, three weeks after my

892
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:18,679
last shift, I dared to Emil Zielen, one of the

893
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:21,840
few night janitors who might know anything. I kept it casual,

894
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:23,960
asking after her and the stray cast. She always fared

895
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:26,800
in the garage. No reply, not even a bounce back.

896
00:44:27,559 --> 00:44:30,800
A week later, a staff profile vanished from Cheris's public Lincoln.

897
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:33,519
The world at side moved on, but I was haunted

898
00:44:33,559 --> 00:44:35,599
by the echo, by the knowledge that others must advise

899
00:44:35,679 --> 00:44:38,800
to see these patterns. Fears to map. I combed through

900
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:42,000
secure forms, scanning for a post about disappearing floors late night,

901
00:44:42,039 --> 00:44:45,159
badg glitches stuck elevators, but the stores were always too vague,

902
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:47,360
too quickly deleted, the posters drift in a way before

903
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:50,719
anyone could follow up. I tried calling families. Jake's brother

904
00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:54,199
listed in a public record search. His voice mail was full.

905
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:58,079
Taro's mother answered soft voice, but firm she's on sabbatical.

906
00:44:58,199 --> 00:45:01,920
We prefer not to talk. It really dissolved as the

907
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:05,159
weeks beled by. I cataloged every loose end. Once the

908
00:45:05,199 --> 00:45:07,559
story connected in my head and network of vanished night staff,

909
00:45:07,679 --> 00:45:10,119
not only at Cherist, but peering and scattered news clippings

910
00:45:10,119 --> 00:45:13,440
from competitors across the city. Night watchmen found missing out

911
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:16,199
to elevate a malfunction that he analyst fails to return home.

912
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:20,519
Companies with large downtown buildings similar security, similar errors in

913
00:45:20,559 --> 00:45:23,360
the reporting of floors. It was never the day people,

914
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:26,000
not the highly visible, always the invisible glue guards. It

915
00:45:26,079 --> 00:45:29,679
t janitors. For a while, I considered writing it all out,

916
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:32,840
sending it to a journalist, or publishing it online, but

917
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:35,519
even the drafts had a wave of glutching word files

918
00:45:35,559 --> 00:45:39,239
over it and image's returning error messages. I trusted only

919
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:42,239
my analog notes. The Scotch fragments had hidden Kurt's desperate

920
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:46,239
handwriting the old blueprints. Still, as time passed, I found

921
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:49,000
myself wondering if my memories were bleeding into dreams, or

922
00:45:49,039 --> 00:45:52,239
if the dreams were swallowing reality. It changed One evening,

923
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:54,760
when half awake in my silent apartment, I noticed the

924
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:57,800
faintest roy glow on my bedroom wall. I'd never installed

925
00:45:57,800 --> 00:46:00,800
an alarm there, creeping closer I found it coming from

926
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:02,800
a spot beneath the dresser, an early d dull but

927
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:05,559
pulsing marking of rectangle and plastic embedded into the wood.

928
00:46:06,199 --> 00:46:08,159
It was the shape of puffect match for badge reader,

929
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:11,199
the kind I'd seen installed on as L minus thirteen.

930
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:14,679
I stared, hot, pounding for mebe an ere the glow

931
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:18,480
pulse faintly once per second. My phone refused to photograph it.

932
00:46:18,519 --> 00:46:20,840
The image only showed am a broken darkness where it glimmered.

933
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:23,960
Even in full darkness. That single red eye watched me

934
00:46:24,599 --> 00:46:26,800
as if in a trance. I reached for the bottom floor.

935
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:30,199
There was no power's horse, no wiring. I pressed my

936
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:32,400
their team break room caught to the glowing space, sick

937
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:35,079
with fear, knowing what I'd done. The light flick had

938
00:46:35,079 --> 00:46:38,119
green for a moment, then as quickly as it had come,

939
00:46:38,199 --> 00:46:41,320
it winked out. My room was plunged into silence, except

940
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,880
for anl not silence, not quite the faint u mistakable

941
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:47,599
homopluorescent bulbs vibrating at the age of hearing rose under

942
00:46:47,679 --> 00:46:50,079
my floor. I felt the rhythm in my bones, a

943
00:46:50,159 --> 00:46:53,000
drone that could only belong to one place. I jolted

944
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,159
awake not long after, if awake meant anything at all.

945
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:58,119
My mind stutted over the boundary between sleep and memory,

946
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:00,679
replaying a tingling static in my mirror, the vague after image,

947
00:47:00,679 --> 00:47:02,639
that light behind my movement. At two zero a M.

948
00:47:03,159 --> 00:47:05,679
I fumbled for the bad still on my desk, still chilled,

949
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:09,599
My phone vibrated, no collar, I d just a single

950
00:47:09,679 --> 00:47:12,599
line text, welcome back. Two zero a M. I peered

951
00:47:12,599 --> 00:47:16,480
at the clock one fifty eight. The badge readers after

952
00:47:16,519 --> 00:47:18,719
image hovered by the side of my bedow wavering red

953
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:22,239
glow I couldn't touch, couldn't photograph. My breath was ragged

954
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:24,079
at every part of me, longing for nothing more than

955
00:47:24,119 --> 00:47:26,159
to run, to leave the building and its ghost floors

956
00:47:26,159 --> 00:47:29,239
and hidden traps behind forever. Yet I understood now that

957
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:31,360
escape was not just a matter of walking out a door.

958
00:47:32,079 --> 00:47:34,079
It was a matter of unwinding a story too tightly

959
00:47:34,119 --> 00:47:36,199
wound around the city's bones, a story as old a

960
00:47:36,239 --> 00:47:40,000
security itself, as corporate pernoia, as night itself. At two

961
00:47:40,119 --> 00:47:43,920
zero a m. Precisely, the light faded, fluorescent humbers within

962
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:47,400
the walls then retreated. I was alone, once again, alone

963
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:50,159
except for the knowledge the badge lay cold in my

964
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:53,000
grip its fall number, reflecting the shadow language of secrets,

965
00:47:53,079 --> 00:47:55,599
the architecture of erasure, the persistence of memory in a

966
00:47:55,679 --> 00:47:58,440
building that never slept. In the days that followed a

967
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:01,800
return to hollow routine, the company silence did not let up.

968
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:04,360
My image never quite matched me in the mirror. I

969
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:06,400
watched for the red glow each night, always relieved when

970
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:08,559
it did not reappear, always unsettled by what it meant

971
00:48:08,599 --> 00:48:13,239
about prisons and absence. Months went by. Sometimes in crowds,

972
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:16,199
I saw people in faded chairsh lanyards, looking over their shoulders,

973
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:19,719
their eyes drawn to the invisible spaces between elevators. I

974
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:22,239
never approached them. An newariness grown in the city's hut.

975
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:26,039
One evening, an envelope arrived, blank except for hand drawn

976
00:48:26,079 --> 00:48:28,119
out line of the brickroomb badge and a single phrase,

977
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:32,480
still here, watch your floors. No return address. The postmark blurred.

978
00:48:33,119 --> 00:48:35,960
A deep truth settled into me. Then, whatever how Jake

979
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,440
and did others, whatever lived in the scenes between floors,

980
00:48:38,639 --> 00:48:41,079
found its own ways to survive, to watch, to remember.

981
00:48:41,679 --> 00:48:44,800
The building's memory was a living thing, insatiable, humming, indifferent.

982
00:48:45,519 --> 00:48:48,360
In the quietest hours, when city lights flickered across drawn

983
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:50,000
blinds in the wild trunk to the size of my

984
00:48:50,079 --> 00:48:52,440
own breath. I found myself listening for the hum, slipping

985
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:55,360
the badge from its hiding place. I wondered, as all

986
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:57,639
seekers do, whether the trap sprung for one could ever

987
00:48:57,719 --> 00:49:01,119
fully close. After being found, sleep did not come easily.

988
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:04,639
When it did, I found myself walking gray, always once again,

989
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:07,199
always nearing a door with no number, always holding a

990
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:09,639
card and Boss thirteen in my sweating fist, forever poise

991
00:49:09,679 --> 00:49:11,679
at the turning point, waiting for the indicator to flicker,

992
00:49:11,719 --> 00:49:14,280
of the old machine to whine, and the world once

993
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:16,920
again to park for the vanished. And if in the

994
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:20,239
day's realness I thought myself safe, the smallest details belied me.

995
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:22,639
A drifting scrap of corporate carpet, a statict tuchll. At

996
00:49:22,679 --> 00:49:24,760
two seven a m. The faint, hollow sound of a

997
00:49:24,840 --> 00:49:27,199
distant and seen vending machine cycling changed that no one

998
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:30,039
ever comes to collect. But the vending machine wasn't the

999
00:49:30,079 --> 00:49:32,039
only thing I heard that night, the last time I

1000
00:49:32,119 --> 00:49:35,760
truly slept, there was another sound gradually emerging from the

1001
00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:38,400
churn of my uneasy dream, aslow wet scraping, as if

1002
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:41,199
some heavy object was being dragged across anolium just out

1003
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:44,480
of my side. My feet moved, and dream logic carrying

1004
00:49:44,519 --> 00:49:47,239
me down corridors that twisted perversely with each step, glass

1005
00:49:47,280 --> 00:49:49,639
walls warping, the carpet changing from burgundy to slate to

1006
00:49:49,679 --> 00:49:51,639
the speckled dust choked pat and I had seen non

1007
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:55,639
service level thirteen office chairs bungently on their own. Monitors

1008
00:49:55,679 --> 00:49:59,000
displayed empty loggins and badge times, and overhead the fluorescent

1009
00:49:59,079 --> 00:50:01,119
lights trembled with a staf drunk so deep I felt

1010
00:50:01,159 --> 00:50:03,800
it behind my teeth. And then I saw Jake again,

1011
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:06,480
diminish but waiting, sitting crosslegged in the thread berck couch

1012
00:50:06,559 --> 00:50:09,599
in that impossible lounge. His skin was pale, I suck it,

1013
00:50:09,679 --> 00:50:12,119
sunken into darkness, but his mouth moved in a pattern

1014
00:50:12,159 --> 00:50:14,639
I recognized only after a moment. He was typing invisible

1015
00:50:14,679 --> 00:50:17,199
lines in the air, A tape recorder spun on the

1016
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:19,800
floor beside him, its seat and furling, and the broken,

1017
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:22,239
looping voice pressed through my head, not through my ears.

1018
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:25,119
Watch the doors. Don't trust the bat. Nothing leaves everything

1019
00:50:25,159 --> 00:50:28,119
files away. Eventually I reached out to him, wanting to warrant,

1020
00:50:28,119 --> 00:50:31,559
to confess, to apologize, but he did not acknowledge me. Instead,

1021
00:50:31,679 --> 00:50:34,280
he held out a badge like mine. The number was wrung,

1022
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,199
not his nor mine, but a string of numerals that

1023
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:39,679
meant nothing until I realized it was my home address.

1024
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:42,920
My hand recoiled, and the lights flared to false summrise,

1025
00:50:43,159 --> 00:50:46,800
colorless and sharp. Thus scraping noise returned closer now, and

1026
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:48,840
I wheeled around in the dream hallway, every part of

1027
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:51,119
my body screaming for exit, even as I knew there

1028
00:50:51,199 --> 00:50:54,440
was none. A door, flat open marked break room thirteen,

1029
00:50:54,639 --> 00:50:57,320
and I hurtled toward it. As I passed the threshold,

1030
00:50:57,400 --> 00:50:59,480
all sun cut away abruptly, and I woke to darkness.

1031
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:02,119
Slick was sweat, my fiscal tight round bed sheets, finger

1032
00:51:02,199 --> 00:51:05,840
nails taking into my palms. I gathered myself, breathing hard,

1033
00:51:06,559 --> 00:51:08,800
the world around me steady, but even in the silence,

1034
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:12,000
that hump persisted, a low but real I sat up, shaky,

1035
00:51:12,079 --> 00:51:14,159
and glimpsed in a muted light from the street, the

1036
00:51:14,239 --> 00:51:16,400
edge of the plastic badge winking, where caught a glint

1037
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:19,199
from a distant street lamp. I tried to go about

1038
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:22,559
my routine's coffee, running, water, news and deep breasts, but

1039
00:51:22,639 --> 00:51:25,400
the sense of pursuit trailed me all morning. At noon,

1040
00:51:25,519 --> 00:51:29,559
my phone vibrated unremarkable number, though not one I recognized.

1041
00:51:30,239 --> 00:51:33,039
Against my better judgment, I picked up. There was a

1042
00:51:33,079 --> 00:51:36,679
click than the flat line of someone waiting. Hullo, no

1043
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:41,039
response this is I stopped, not willing to give my name.

1044
00:51:41,679 --> 00:51:44,679
After a pause, a male voice clipped and called came through.

1045
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:47,119
You're not to discuss your previous employment, events of your

1046
00:51:47,159 --> 00:51:49,920
shift or cheerish property. You will be monitored for compliance

1047
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:53,840
with the terms you signed. Silence, Then, almost as an afterthought,

1048
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:55,880
a whisper, brittle at the edge of patience. Do you

1049
00:51:55,960 --> 00:51:59,039
not hampt to re enter the premises? Before I could answer,

1050
00:51:59,280 --> 00:52:02,239
call dropped. I stared at the phone, willing it to

1051
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:04,960
ring again, but it did not. I felt a prickling

1052
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:07,880
alumsscalp the tacit acknowledgment that I was being watched by

1053
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:11,239
real and perhaps more abstract eyes. That evening, while I

1054
00:52:11,360 --> 00:52:13,559
was nursing a cup of tea, another message arrived by

1055
00:52:13,599 --> 00:52:18,199
currier and branded hand delivered. I examined the envelope. Inside

1056
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:21,000
was a small, old fashioned audio cassette, the label blank

1057
00:52:21,039 --> 00:52:23,639
except for the word listen. I no longer had a player.

1058
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:26,719
The ancient device from service level thirteen. The one night

1059
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:30,679
handled in the lounge replayed in my mind. After some hesitation,

1060
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:33,000
I messaged a friend who ran an indie music shop

1061
00:52:33,039 --> 00:52:36,719
a few blocks away, god a working tape deck. I asked,

1062
00:52:37,599 --> 00:52:40,679
need to hear something unlock. We met after closing eyres.

1063
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:43,800
The shop's walls were lined with all manner of electronics clutter,

1064
00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:45,920
but amid the junk, he produced a portable tape deck,

1065
00:52:46,159 --> 00:52:49,320
battery compartment, tape chap. He didn't ask questions when I

1066
00:52:49,400 --> 00:52:51,360
slaid the cassette in place. He'd seen dark a stuff

1067
00:52:51,400 --> 00:52:54,280
traded among collectors, and he understood the unspoken rules of

1068
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:58,559
city nights. I pressed play mouth dry at first, just

1069
00:52:58,679 --> 00:53:01,480
his sole tape and spooled and ought by time. Then

1070
00:53:01,639 --> 00:53:04,119
a tremble of office noise, the murmur of distant printers,

1071
00:53:04,159 --> 00:53:07,079
a pot of coffee bubbling, A voice, female and weary,

1072
00:53:07,159 --> 00:53:10,199
filtered through static. If anybody finds this, it means you

1073
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:14,559
had access, or maybe you made access. Pause. Elevator only

1074
00:53:14,639 --> 00:53:17,000
works a set times. If you badge after two, you'll

1075
00:53:17,039 --> 00:53:20,159
never leave. Don't trust the exits, don't trust anybody in management.

1076
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:22,280
We thought it was a safety protocol, but it's not

1077
00:53:22,639 --> 00:53:25,280
something changed in the system when they upgraded security after

1078
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:27,360
the fire, they left us. We watched for weeks as

1079
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:30,039
the badge logs shuffle, the floors receded, the screens fuzzed

1080
00:53:30,079 --> 00:53:33,320
until faces just stopped. The purring hiss again, someone's breath

1081
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:35,480
close to the mic, then that same code of phrase,

1082
00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:39,519
nothing leaves everything files away. Eventually the tape clicked off.

1083
00:53:40,159 --> 00:53:42,719
My friend regarded me with polite bewilderment as I removed

1084
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:46,559
the cassette and pocketed it. You okay, he asked, saw

1085
00:53:46,639 --> 00:53:49,760
something strange at work? I said, don't worry about it,

1086
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:52,960
but he frowned. The lookal lingering after me as I left,

1087
00:53:53,039 --> 00:53:55,239
as though he half expected me to vanish before reaching

1088
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:59,239
the curb. Back home, sleep was impossible. That phrase returned

1089
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:02,679
to me again and again, Everything files away. Eventually. I

1090
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:05,800
tried to occupy myself with anything else, movies, reading, even

1091
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:08,559
organizing my kitchen drawers, but the sound of filing, metallic

1092
00:54:08,639 --> 00:54:12,400
and repetitive, pressed into my thoughts. I considered seeking out

1093
00:54:12,440 --> 00:54:15,400
old colleagues, finding Curt was eleanor even Jake's family, but

1094
00:54:15,519 --> 00:54:18,519
something in the warning stopped me cold, not just fearful,

1095
00:54:18,559 --> 00:54:21,480
myself but a sudden intuitive sense anyone pulled into this

1096
00:54:21,519 --> 00:54:24,000
would be in danger too. One night, as I was

1097
00:54:24,039 --> 00:54:26,320
staring at the city lights tracing the grid of offices,

1098
00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:29,039
my computer monitor blink to pop up, appeared out of nowhere,

1099
00:54:29,119 --> 00:54:32,519
then vanished. I double checked my brows' history, ran scans

1100
00:54:32,519 --> 00:54:35,320
from malware. Nothing. But then deep in my download folder

1101
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:38,079
I found a new file. It was crudely titled as

1102
00:54:38,159 --> 00:54:41,280
al thirteene Look Summer t x D furious and trepid.

1103
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:44,480
I opened it. Inside were lines on lines of badge logs,

1104
00:54:44,559 --> 00:54:46,599
a list of names with entries beside a floor marked

1105
00:54:46,639 --> 00:54:50,039
service level thirteen. The spreadsheet ran back decades, and the

1106
00:54:50,119 --> 00:54:52,679
last few entries bore from million names. Jacobar at TI

1107
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:56,039
tore database K two facilities, then my own, stamped with

1108
00:54:56,119 --> 00:54:59,440
the precise time I triggered the elevator override. My badge

1109
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:01,519
had not own recorded my visit, but had been added

1110
00:55:01,519 --> 00:55:03,679
to this chain of vanished people, as if the system

1111
00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:06,840
had cleaned me. However, briefly, at the bottom of the list,

1112
00:55:07,079 --> 00:55:09,519
one line was highlighted with a pulse and carrot returned

1113
00:55:09,599 --> 00:55:13,599
query status unresolved foul pending pulse racing. I dragged the

1114
00:55:13,639 --> 00:55:16,159
file on to thumb drive and plugged my machine. I

1115
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:19,039
realized how little power I had to fight this. Where

1116
00:55:19,079 --> 00:55:21,480
my pride and security and order had given me confidence,

1117
00:55:21,639 --> 00:55:24,239
now there was only powerlessness, a dull, persistent fear that

1118
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:26,800
what had been opened could never entirely be closed. I

1119
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:29,440
knock at my door, startled me. It was nearly three

1120
00:55:29,599 --> 00:55:33,639
zero eh ma'em adrenaline surge. I moved quietly, peering through

1121
00:55:33,679 --> 00:55:36,280
the peep hole on the other side. Nothing but the

1122
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:39,320
dim fame of the hallway. Nobody visible, just the echo

1123
00:55:39,400 --> 00:55:42,039
of a door shutting softly elsewhere down the hall. But

1124
00:55:42,159 --> 00:55:44,199
I saw a foot level, a new envelope, thicker than

1125
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:47,119
the last. I waited a full two minutes, maybe more,

1126
00:55:47,159 --> 00:55:50,960
before stooping to collect it. My hand shook. Inside was

1127
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:53,519
a single sheet Your status is still in review. Await

1128
00:55:53,559 --> 00:55:58,199
further instructions. No signature, no logo, nothing but those type flatters,

1129
00:55:58,239 --> 00:55:59,880
the kind use by the old chiff memos in it.

1130
00:56:00,079 --> 00:56:02,760
Some minutes thirteen. The paper rattled as I folded it.

1131
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:05,559
I'd intuition told me, But I had the sense that

1132
00:56:05,639 --> 00:56:08,639
hiding was feudile, mixing fatigue in dread. I called a

1133
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:12,199
distant acquaintance who occasionally worked as a facility's temperatureist competitor

1134
00:56:12,239 --> 00:56:15,400
across town. We spoke quietly. You ever had problems with

1135
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:19,639
your badge at night? I asked, silence, a shuffling breath.

1136
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:23,159
You mean like losing time or floors not matching up?

1137
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:26,679
I nearly dropped the phone exactly that did you ever?

1138
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:29,119
Did you ever hear about a floor between twelve and fourteen?

1139
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:32,719
There was a short laugh, but it was humorless. Plenty

1140
00:56:32,760 --> 00:56:35,320
of places skip thirteen, but sometimes you see the elevator

1141
00:56:35,320 --> 00:56:37,159
blink at the wrong time. My friend quite after, he

1142
00:56:37,199 --> 00:56:38,800
said he spent an hour in a stairwell and the

1143
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:40,960
floors kept looping. They let him go, told him he

1144
00:56:41,039 --> 00:56:43,639
violated prott call. He nerved places like these gut roots,

1145
00:56:43,679 --> 00:56:46,000
the old stuff buried in the building, patched over but

1146
00:56:46,159 --> 00:56:49,079
not gone. We said no more, both hearing the risk

1147
00:56:49,119 --> 00:56:51,840
in our voices. That was the first time I truly

1148
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:54,159
believed this wasn't just your a's secret. Something endemic to

1149
00:56:54,199 --> 00:56:57,440
a greater whip of corporate architectures, a system designed to

1150
00:56:57,480 --> 00:56:59,559
prone those who didn't comply or who saw too much

1151
00:56:59,679 --> 00:57:02,480
repair ropst over decades, left as a by bas subroutine,

1152
00:57:02,519 --> 00:57:05,159
but never deleted. There would be others like me, The

1153
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:08,719
stories erased, edited or distorted into rumors in lost documentation.

1154
00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:11,719
In the following weeks, emails trickled and from what I

1155
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:14,679
could only assume were similar outcast instructions half spelled in

1156
00:57:14,719 --> 00:57:18,400
corporate shorthand, warnings to avoid public complaints, snifts of log data,

1157
00:57:18,519 --> 00:57:21,920
images of Badge readers embedded in unlikely places, basement storage units,

1158
00:57:22,039 --> 00:57:25,880
bandoned skyways. Sometimes there were notes scribbled on receipts scanned

1159
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:29,800
and email from anonymous accounts. Most never included names, just

1160
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:32,119
badge numbers of the years when they'd last seen, some

1161
00:57:32,320 --> 00:57:35,440
like glimmer through a normal window. Each contact was brief,

1162
00:57:35,519 --> 00:57:37,800
as if writing even a single email risk being found.

1163
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:40,800
Many alluded to monitoring how the cameras kept moving, how

1164
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:43,679
the badge sweats still registered at thought intervals months after

1165
00:57:43,719 --> 00:57:46,519
they had left their positions. The more stories they gathered,

1166
00:57:46,599 --> 00:57:49,239
the clearer the picture became a collective of vanished lives,

1167
00:57:49,360 --> 00:57:52,280
nudged from their routines into an invisible holding pen. Condemned

1168
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:55,320
to drift in corporate purgatory. Must just plead it, don't

1169
00:57:55,360 --> 00:57:58,079
let anyone else badge in, and always don't trust the

1170
00:57:58,159 --> 00:58:02,000
elevators never follow the light. I spent my next days

1171
00:58:02,039 --> 00:58:04,960
preparing for something, though I could not say what. I

1172
00:58:05,039 --> 00:58:06,920
backed up my remaining files to discs, I hid in

1173
00:58:06,960 --> 00:58:09,880
different locations. I rehearsed what little I might say to

1174
00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:13,039
reporter if ever risked telling the story in person. But

1175
00:58:13,159 --> 00:58:16,280
in every attempt, my courage followed. Each time I tried

1176
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:19,440
to reach out, something intervened, the email bounce, the call redirected,

1177
00:58:19,519 --> 00:58:22,440
their count clothes. The badge itself never left its drawer.

1178
00:58:23,280 --> 00:58:26,079
Still at odd eyes, I'd remove it and study its surface,

1179
00:58:26,400 --> 00:58:29,400
reading the embossed thirteen and the bland and specific break room,

1180
00:58:29,519 --> 00:58:31,519
tracing the edges as if I might find some secret

1181
00:58:31,599 --> 00:58:34,760
catch or hidden message. The number felt heavy each night.

1182
00:58:35,519 --> 00:58:38,599
Then one Wednesday, long past midnight, a power flicker swept

1183
00:58:38,639 --> 00:58:41,400
the building. The digital clock on my stoved up erset

1184
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:43,519
the fridge ground to halt for a fraction of a second,

1185
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:46,440
and in the darkness I heard the drone of fluorescent lights, impossibly,

1186
00:58:46,519 --> 00:58:50,000
unmistakably emanating from below my feet, my heart in my throat,

1187
00:58:50,119 --> 00:58:52,880
I walked barefoot, cross called anoleum, back to my bedroom,

1188
00:58:52,880 --> 00:58:55,639
where the badge sat. As I approached the dresser, I

1189
00:58:55,679 --> 00:58:57,639
saw the faintous ghost of a green glow there and

1190
00:58:57,760 --> 00:58:59,679
then gone, as though a card reader had winked at

1191
00:58:59,679 --> 00:59:02,559
me from beneath the wood. I couldn't ignore it any longer.

1192
00:59:03,239 --> 00:59:05,960
I dressed, quickly, pocketing the badge, a flashlight, the thumb

1193
00:59:06,039 --> 00:59:08,000
drive of the logs, and a battered old walkie I

1194
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:10,840
had kept from my years in security. I told myself

1195
00:59:10,920 --> 00:59:13,559
that going back was foolish, that returning to chairs was

1196
00:59:13,599 --> 00:59:16,280
both impossible and would be met with resistance or worse.

1197
00:59:17,079 --> 00:59:18,920
But the need for completion, a burned down sense of

1198
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:22,000
unfinished business, was stronger than dread. I made my way

1199
00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:25,000
across the city, skirting the well lit main streets. The

1200
00:59:25,119 --> 00:59:27,559
corporate tower loaned up of the grid, indifferent, as always,

1201
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:31,320
multi story blank gaze, both implacable and inviting. The entrance

1202
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:33,559
lights washed the sidewalk, and I waited in the alley,

1203
00:59:33,679 --> 00:59:36,760
watching for movement. There were no security guards, nobody at

1204
00:59:36,760 --> 00:59:39,199
the front desk now after midnight, just the echo of

1205
00:59:39,239 --> 00:59:42,039
empty lobby footsteps and the electronic pulse of barged doors.

1206
00:59:42,760 --> 00:59:45,440
Every internal entrance was control, but I still remembered the

1207
00:59:45,519 --> 00:59:48,440
side door. The catering crew sometimes propt for overnight deliverers.

1208
00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:52,719
I checked instinctively. The latch was misaligned, softened by hundreds

1209
00:59:52,719 --> 00:59:55,440
of slams over years. It clicked open with only a

1210
00:59:55,519 --> 00:59:57,599
gentle shove and an echoing sigh from the weather strip

1211
00:59:58,199 --> 01:00:01,800
in sight. The familiar scent washed over me, laminated directories,

1212
01:00:01,880 --> 01:00:04,440
the chemical tang of floor polish, the residual warmth from

1213
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:07,239
machines cooling in the night time. For ease, I drifted

1214
01:00:07,280 --> 01:00:09,599
into the building's belly, keeping to the darker stretches, the

1215
01:00:09,679 --> 01:00:12,079
farthest corners from where a current badge logs might pain.

1216
01:00:12,719 --> 01:00:15,280
My destination was clear to twelve four, the sterroll hidden

1217
01:00:15,280 --> 01:00:18,559
between the conference center and janitor's closet. I slipped inside,

1218
01:00:18,639 --> 01:00:21,039
the boots of old habit, carrying me over familiar train.

1219
01:00:21,719 --> 01:00:23,360
It was there, in the glim above the end of

1220
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:26,519
the landing that I found the badge reader. At this hour,

1221
01:00:26,599 --> 01:00:29,840
the dull Reddi lady pulsed again, inviting predatory. I pressed

1222
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:32,519
the thirteen brake room card to its face. The green

1223
01:00:32,559 --> 01:00:36,320
glimmer responded immediately, more eager than before. The door released,

1224
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:38,519
heavy and slow on its hinges, emitting a size of

1225
01:00:38,559 --> 01:00:42,760
exhaling years of containment. I entered the stale air greeted me,

1226
01:00:42,920 --> 01:00:46,800
thick with memory and dread. Space was unchanged. The break

1227
01:00:46,880 --> 01:00:49,440
rooms outline grew from the darkness, tables askew the vending

1228
01:00:49,519 --> 01:00:52,840
machine's dull face. Monitors dreading the static, gaze over abandoned

1229
01:00:52,880 --> 01:00:55,880
mugs and dust. The humming was larder here, not only

1230
01:00:55,880 --> 01:01:00,119
audible but palpable underneath the skin. My phone vibrated. I

1231
01:01:00,199 --> 01:01:03,639
glanced down. No service, no time stamp, just a blank

1232
01:01:03,679 --> 01:01:06,559
screen and the batter draining by the second. The door

1233
01:01:06,599 --> 01:01:10,039
behind me is shirt ceiling, with the hush from somewhere

1234
01:01:10,079 --> 01:01:13,199
deeper in the room, a shuffing noise in the lamp light.

1235
01:01:13,440 --> 01:01:15,840
Another hunch figure, a new present stood by the monitors,

1236
01:01:16,039 --> 01:01:19,079
dragging a chair with painstick and quiet. Some one else

1237
01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:22,239
morooned by the same error or design, their posture angular

1238
01:01:22,320 --> 01:01:26,199
and guarded. I called that softly, Jake. The head turned.

1239
01:01:26,280 --> 01:01:29,079
It wasn't jake. A woman, this time, pale and jittering.

1240
01:01:29,199 --> 01:01:31,760
Her badge clipped to a QRD around her wrist. She

1241
01:01:31,880 --> 01:01:34,679
blinked as if flight stabbed her, then stepped forward. You

1242
01:01:34,800 --> 01:01:37,679
have a cart, she said, flatly voice. Then I nodded,

1243
01:01:37,800 --> 01:01:40,960
showing it not fully trusting my voice She eyed it,

1244
01:01:41,039 --> 01:01:44,199
then me. It won't let you leave, she whispered, not

1245
01:01:44,320 --> 01:01:47,119
if you use it twice. I swallowed hard, fighting the

1246
01:01:47,199 --> 01:01:49,800
urge to glance back at the door. What happens if

1247
01:01:49,840 --> 01:01:53,440
you try, she shook her head. Sometimes you end up

1248
01:01:53,440 --> 01:01:56,039
somewhere else. Sometimes you just end up here again, even

1249
01:01:56,039 --> 01:01:58,559
if you think you left. Most stopped trying. I saw Jake,

1250
01:01:58,639 --> 01:02:03,920
I managed, She winced. He's quiet. Now, got too tired.

1251
01:02:03,960 --> 01:02:06,039
The system logs you eventually. If you keep moving, it

1252
01:02:06,119 --> 01:02:08,000
forgets he for a while. If you rests, if you

1253
01:02:08,039 --> 01:02:10,840
give up, it files you away. She shivered to discuss

1254
01:02:11,000 --> 01:02:14,960
memory both why do you come back? The question scraped

1255
01:02:14,960 --> 01:02:17,440
at a row wound inside me. I need to know

1256
01:02:17,639 --> 01:02:21,320
a needy I broke off. I wasn't sure what I needed.

1257
01:02:22,039 --> 01:02:24,119
Maybe just to believe someone could know the truth and

1258
01:02:24,199 --> 01:02:27,000
not be erased by it. She sighed, eyes darting to

1259
01:02:27,079 --> 01:02:30,599
the monitors. They still watch from outside, you know, management.

1260
01:02:30,880 --> 01:02:33,679
Sometimes you see them on the cameras, just staring. I

1261
01:02:33,800 --> 01:02:37,320
move closer, keeping my hands visible. What do you want?

1262
01:02:38,079 --> 01:02:42,039
A bitter, lopsided smile crossed her features. Nobody's ever asked me, da.

1263
01:02:42,760 --> 01:02:45,480
She dropped her gaze. I want to find the right door,

1264
01:02:45,559 --> 01:02:48,760
the one that goes somewhere real. We stood together in silence,

1265
01:02:48,760 --> 01:02:51,360
the hum around us thickening. She gestured at one of

1266
01:02:51,400 --> 01:02:54,119
the monitors tapped it. On screen, through a haze of

1267
01:02:54,159 --> 01:02:56,840
static was an image of the lobby. My own form

1268
01:02:56,880 --> 01:02:58,920
flickered there, indistinct and slow, as if f you ha

1269
01:02:58,920 --> 01:03:02,440
did a time lack. Sometimes, she said softly, you leave,

1270
01:03:02,519 --> 01:03:05,559
but you don't. The monitor showed me on loop circling

1271
01:03:05,639 --> 01:03:09,800
security desk the last night I'd worked. I watched myself stand, checklogs,

1272
01:03:09,840 --> 01:03:12,920
pick up a clipboard, yawned deeply. The badger my belt

1273
01:03:12,960 --> 01:03:17,599
blinked in the reflected fluorescent light. And that is the end.

1274
01:03:18,199 --> 01:03:19,880
Thank you for listening, and I will see you in

1275
01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:20,440
the next one.