Speaker 1: The flickering bulbs never gave off enough gload to reach
the far corners of the break room, but I'd stopped
minding there half to midnight. The space shrank till lit box,
where old chairs hunched under plastic drop sheets and sword
as drifted in the crease light. You'd think a building
as expensive as this would chase away to grit during renovations,
but the dust always found its way back in the
tape of corridor beside my hand were at the red dock, glinting.
I told myself it was for the union, and case
management tried to frame me for breakage with that. Truth
is it never picked up more than the drug of
my boots or the distant nail gun from over. My
crews who never waved, never met my eye. Still, when
I was alone and the silence pressed against my ears,
it helped toalk just loud enough to hear myself. On
play back, Monday one forty three a m I murmured
done thick from vending machine, coffee basement lounge maintower. My
breath came up, sire. I recorded that too, without meaning to.
Tilting the cart up onto its rear wheels, I pushed
out into the third floor corridor. The whole wing had
been labeled restricted for the open wiring project. Rows of
ceiling towels gone, insulation, drooping down in shredered ribbons. My
mop bucket shivered against the linoleum, all past marked with
flapping hesitate. The only light came from above those tubes,
flashing and narcotic rhythm. I'd grown used to how the
space bend around, barely touched corners. The foe plant I
held him my head, rarely matched what actually existed any
given week. I told myself that was just the cost
of transition. Corporate, said nobody but me, and a skeleton
of data migration tech should be left this laid. Yet,
when my hand reached for the next door, a loose
jawl cut down my wrist. Further down the hallway, chafts
of light were rolling under doors, spreading into the gloom,
like the building itself was awakening. I stood and certain
the cart wedged beside a plastic wrapped copy machine. I
edged forward, just past the accounting bulben. Our work station
lamp glowed above a single cubicle. What stopped me not
the light, but the sound, A faint hiss mechanical, followed
by stuttering clatter a printer working its way through a job.
There were only a few approved computers in the restricted zones,
all meant to be locked down at night. My supervisor, Hendrik,
swore she double checked the floor. At ten thirty. Under
the lamp, a coffee munk steamed the warm, fogging its rim.
Next to it, the printer's tray held the damp sheet.
I picked it up, careful not to smudge the faint
purple lines. At the top. A cell block with a
single headery monecaw down the page, the name repeated over
and over, lines fading toward the bottom, the ink almost spectral.
By the time they vanished. The last section of the
spreadshet simply went blank. I froze roll the munk in
my palm. Faint sent bergamot and something sharper, not my
usual institutional blend. The air seemed denser, like whoever had
filled this cup was still some more close, maybe hiding,
maybe watching My eyes found a nearby security camera's red
lens glimmering a crude impersonal pupil. Had it filmed someone
coming or going, or just me caught clutching around a
mouk reading print outs I wasn't supposed to see. I
stuffed the spreadsheet into the bottom of my cot slip
the coffee mug behind my spray bottles, swallowing the urge
to call at my footfalls already muffled, seemed impossibly aloud.
Now that's when my phone vibrated, the screen blinking with
an incoming call. Hendrix, Her voice grated across the speaker,
full of static. What's your location? You're offer checkist, Stay
on a proof's owns. We've got new protocols. Don't go wandering.
The urge to mention what I'd found flickered and died.
Copy that I said, pitching my voice flat neutral. I
watched as a drop of coffee slid from the rim
of the mug to the tray's lacquer, leaving a street behind.
When a call went dead, I took one last look around.
Nothing had moved, but somehow the distance between cubicles made
the air feel tighter. Soon as I crossed out of
the glowing polcast by the lamp, the corridor head was
black save for an open office. I head, with more
lights now lit than I could remember turning on. The
mug went into my coat, its heat scoring my side.
When I finally let myself exhale, it sounded like someone
else breeding out from shadows and left behind. I wish
I could say that night was the first time I
felt unwlcome, But at a place like this one, the
building's on ease always seemed older than the bricks I was.
Before dusk, the parking lot behind building A yawned open,
a sea of cracked asphalt and white painted numbers that
served as both invitation and warning. My civic rattled as
I turned into my usual slot, engine, grumbling like a
dove too tired to bark. The sun hovered just above
the low rise, now turning the ductrical, for eighty three
minutes before everything went flat and gray again. I hauled
my gear out, waving half huttedly to the night shift
tch clustered near the loading dock and smoke stained hoodies.
Their faces flickered in foham lights, some strangers, some half
remembered from the elevator. There was less talking as the
weeks dragged on, more faces replaced by new ones, or
none at all. I once wrote the names in my
note canal. The names fell slippery, hard to hold on
to inside. Security had set up a temporary check and desk,
big acrylic shield separating staff from the guard in his
ill fitting blazer. I flashed my badge, signed my name
on a yellow and clipboard. The guard and Nugay Salvader.
Maybe he didn't bother to look up. He checked my
initials on a shrinking list of authorized over night personnel.
The buildings layout never quite made sense in the daylight.
The third floor was at angle of chords, monitors, and
lift jacks. The basement a honeycomb of vaults. Seer floor,
as the construction crews called it was the kind of
nerve center waiting for the new day to brain. Rows
of servers, encased and translacent blue shroads, everything humming softly,
lights blinking like an out of sin car. I pushed
my cat along familiar routes, bathrooms, common spaces, copy rooms,
the locked executive wing with its gold key badge reader.
I'd never been curious about what went on behind the
executive doors. Corporate was my business. The only thing I
wanted was paying free shift money in a bank and
a clean exit two years from there. Let the suits
re arrange themselves, so long as nobody bothered me. Yet
lately there had been changes you could feel without seeing.
A nervousness ran through the remaining night cruise, the way
meetings overflowed into stairwalls. House season constructors started avoiding eye contact,
whispering about restructuring ann streamlining while signing in for double overtime.
Sometimes the eat hear name being called to HR on
the overhead, Please meet karran on tree, But the elevator
door swallowed the summoned, and not every chair was filled
the next night. Sometimes someone didn't return at all. There
were always rumors. Back in March, a young tech named
Ragish told me, half joking, don't break the new migration serve.
A last guy who did nobody ever saw again. HR
calls it a volundary resignation, but his desk still as
a granolla bar in the drawer, and last week's post
it notes fading in the light. We both laught, but
the story stuck most nights. My own new real company
was the harsh squeal of the cleaning cart and the
music flickering from someone's forgotten radio. The migration crews flitted
through the holes after sunset, haggard beers, dark eyes, black
messenger bags slung around narrow shoulders. They looked up, nodded,
but nobody lingered on us. Business required it. Amanda Cow
was one of the few who'd ever offered more than smile.
Sometimes she'd sit cross legged in a supply closet, laptop
propped on her knees, eating sunflower seeds and humming faintly
to an invisible tune. Just checking data base logs. Should say,
iyes crinkled with exhaustion. My job's mostly invisible. I recognized
the feeling. There were others, Ragish who still brought lunch
from home and never forgot to wave with his sandwich,
and Miriam blade faced with quick hand, who couldrew rigatate
player out of a staple an ethnic cable. The three
of them were always working, grumbling about integrity, audit and
live migrations that got scheduled after midnight because pipe Mahoni
wants here downtime. Every week Fier stayed late. I'd watched
them through the glass, mopping the night absences into the drain.
Sometimes he heard bits rageous muttering about lost audit trails
and man to burrowing under piles of temp contracts with
anxious looks. Toward the window. At h R office, papers
disappeared in neat armfuls empered out of cubs that had
just yesterday held birthday cards and a crush of empty
energy drink. Hans Karen from h R, a woman with
a permanent frown and an exacting eye, became a fixture.
She heard it lingering staff past the elevators, reciting polished
lines with the cagence of a flight attendant of a
RESTful evening. Remember your transition support is available if needed.
Her arm would wrap around the shoulders of whoever was last,
Always a different employee, always escorted firmly. The ones who
got Karen's attention rarely returned to their old cubes. Knights
blowed into a rhythm that was more coping mechanism than schedule.
Dinner came from a grilled cheese and abasement fending machine
that tasted like Bentley. I sat at the edge of
the loading dock to eat the early autumn coal, numbing
my knuckles. Sometimes I'd call my son if he picked up,
but it mostly went to voicemail. Divorce meant my calendar
was full of date I didn't recognize, and half my
paycheck went to a life I could only glimpse through
school newslet is addressed to parent. We guardian invisible. That's
how I liked it. I could move for a hundred
offices in one shift to not leave a single mark.
I knew the short cut through the silver closets where
the old lunch room still had a couch, the dead
end hall we were in, water always soaked the carpet,
the fuse box that spotted if you flicked the LUTs
too fast. Something in a mind as laugh haunted me.
She looked at the same rooms and saw opportunities, little
ways to redecorate her world. I ended that even if
I never let on, still the sense of being watched pressed,
and if I let my mind wander, the security monitors
blinked at every nook. But sometimes I felt as if
you could shut your eyes and feel a breath at
your shoulder, a second set of hands tugging at your sleeve.
Whether it was paranoia or the grinding routine, I wasn't sure,
only that some spaces fell temptive when they used to,
like some one wanted all of us to vanish unnoticed.
One Tuesday, a week after the first strange night, I
rolled my cart into the third floor. I do boben
and stopped short. A man is descutely clutter of with
sticky notes, chargers, mismatch pens, A photoshot CAC calendar was
perfectly bare. The chair still spun from its last hues,
but every trace of her postits water bottle, even her initials,
scratched into the drawer. It vanished. The only thing left
was a monitor with a swirling screensaver, throwing blue pixels
against the wall. Rageish hunched at an adjacent terminal, barely looked up.
When I pause a man to take off early. I
asked too casual. He frowned, gaze and focused phoo. A
maned tall, black hair, green frosted muck. For a beat,
his face didn't change, then rearranged itself into confusion. I
don't think we have any one by that name. Maybe
temp check with h R. I turned away and saddled
two more cubes. However, someone's desk had the same sudden
preserved them to a snow charge or corps. No novelty mark,
not even the signature budist beads I'd seen there yesterday.
The name plate slot had no label. Several rose down.
Another cub's family photo was missing, just a sun bleach
rerecting a left behind. I peered down the corridor at
the HR doors were always locked tight, but movement flickered
through the frosted glass. Papers shuffled. A shadow hunched forward
and retreated, as if the office was rearranging itself from
inside out. I considered knocking, but the urge felt foolhardy.
I beat my curiosity back into routine. Later in the
maintenance closet, I thumbed through the digital staff directory on
my phone, searching for Amanda's entry. There was nothing cal Amanda,
no results. The last text I'd received from her days
ago now showed as blank a gray ribbon in my
inbooks with no sender icon. That night, during the last
sue before secured his hand over my cart shuddered against
the desk. In records, heat rolled up, steam cowling in
the pale au above a ceramic mug i'd never seen before,
glazed blue with marigolds. The printer nearby word of single page.
I watched once again, and name ran down the margin
and faded ink. This time it was Nicolpeck row after row,
then blank lines. I scanned the desk for an id
line out, a notebook, nothing, no sign anyone had used
it in weeks. Maybe some weird a charmurel prank, I
told myself. But as I lifted the mug and felt
it pulse warmth into my hands, the back of my
neck prickled. I leaned on my cart and tried to
laugh it off, but nobody was around to hear. I
started carrying my old poroid, not that I expected it
to do any good. Film was nearly extinct, but I've
kept dwindling stat from the nineties. On Tuesday night, I
snapped photos of empty desks, the odd print outs, the
mugs still warm when I found them, flick the film
steted out, dully developing under my thumb. As I cleaned
the files, I found always one per deserted cubicle showed
the pattern faded name, sometimes printed, sometimes hand written by
a harrowed pen. I copied every new name into about
It spiral notebook. When I had deep in the cart
fall's bottom, under bleached bottles and old light bulbs. I
didn't know why, only that I had the urge to
keep evidence in case these people turned up or someone
asked after them. On Thursday, I swung by a char
front office to drop off a mug lost and found Amanda's,
or what I still thought of was hers. The entire
are stood empty, no sofur, no sign boards, not even
the battered Figers tree usually posted near the glass where
signage had hung. Rectangular shadows lingered lighter than the surrounding paint.
I knocked twice. No reply. The bad reader's green blow
was dead. Management probably relocating them, I muttered, but the
hallway stripped bare, looked as though some one had left
quickly and without warning. A few nights later, I took
a risk. Lewis, a friendler guard who had been stuck
with the midnight shift for years, leaned back on a
folding chair in a security cubicle. Hey man. He thumbed
up the tab on his kin of red Bull Blue something.
I kept my torn casual knatjak at times lies on
third four cameras desk is missing a lap up. I
want to stay ahead of any claims against the cleaning team.
Lewis crunched his lips, then slid over to the monitor tree.
They've been jumpy about Badge Dada lately, but whatever, just quick,
he navigated to the third floor. What timestom to try
Monday too? Amanda Cow's cubical three hundred nineteen on screen,
grainy for to roll by a monochrome. Amanda Clear's day
entered at eleven fifty eight p m. Dragging a tote
and typing rapidly for a lown spell face led eary
green by the monitor glow. At one forty one. She
got up, set her mug on the desk, stretched, and
the footage shivered. Suddenly, the clock skipped, the picture stuttered,
and Amanda was simply gone, no exit, nothing. The light
on the desk switched off, then on again. The feet glitched,
repeated a burst, then stopped recording for nine minutes before resuming,
with the desk empty, loose frowned, tapping the timeline. It
does doth look right. It doesn't match my sweep, I replied,
throat tide. Does it do that often? He pursed his lips.
Since the migration started. Sometimes we get gaps, ye, notte
Management says it's a software glitch. Old system can't keep up.
We sat side by side as the tape re wound.
You ever see her after that night? I asked Lewis
shook his head. Man the roster turned so fast. Now
I keep my head down. I copied the footage time
codes into my note book. When Lewis shot me a
worried look, I forced a smile and made an excuse
about late returns. The h R office, which had once
resided behind glass and plastic named blates, now looked like
it belonged to a different building. Later that week, after
a trick of fate placed Karen in the copy room
at shift change, I trapped her there clipboor clutched hard
in my hand. Karen, can I ask you to Amanda
move departments? No one seen her in days? Karen's posture stiffened.
Amanda who Cow thirdfore eight immigration, tall, dark hair, death,
three hundred nineteen. I think you too shared coffee Earler
this month. She gave me a lawn arctic look. There
is no Amanda Cow on this site, mister Ellie's Are
you quite well? If you have workplace concerns, HR would
be happy to discuss them during business hours. I dug
out my phone to show her Amanda's last text. The
message to read had vanished, vacuumed out of my chat history.
I checked the staffless again felt my fingers shake. The
name slots in my notes from this week, from last
month through fresh erasures, clean white lines where names once
were not cross out, simply missing. My apologies, Karen said,
sirem precise. If this is an early sign of stress,
janitorial should rout health concerns directly through the designated support liaison.
Further erratic conduct will need documentation. She turned on her heel.
She was cocking sharp on tile and was gone in
the dust stained smoking area. Later that night, I haddled outside,
hands burd in pockets the the nottomn. When kneading my scalp,
Miriam found me there a smodge of nicotine on her lips,
jacket held tight to her waist. You look like you
just saw a ghost, she said quietly. Maybe I did.
She ground a smoke with the heel of her palm.
You remember, Amanda, right, I snapped my head toward her.
You do bits, Miriam admitted, not her voice so much
as that desk the sunflowers eat. I get these flashes
people I know I've worked with, but no context. It's
been happening since the migration. I see names on locks
that shouldn't be there then proof go to chick again. Blank,
she steadied, my face, eyes exhausted but sharp. Whatever's happening,
it's not just you. If you turn up missing makes
Juri were the last to know. We sat in silence,
then agreed we'd keep track for each other, just in
case it got weirder. We didn't say what that would mean.
I don't know whether it was hope or resignation that
sent me back to my cart the next night, Hans
less steady than I cared to admit. Some time around
one fifteen a m I stopped in the darkened storage
room where I had left my things badge and coat,
cheet tubted beside my lope, coffe mug, balance beside my mop.
The room felt wrong. Before I even reached the cart,
aer stagnant drawer jar, the faint scent of after ship
had didn't use. My badge gone not fall and gone.
My favorite pin, the heavy one I kept for years, vanished. Two,
the code she'd often left and touched by the piqueus
thief now missing. It was as if some one had
sorted for my life, taking only what mattered most to me.
On a hunch, I hustled to the building the CCTV hub,
hoping some ghost of the past iro would explain the
loss the screens. As those played back, the feed showed
my cart resting unchanged, myself passing in and out on
the edges. But then the timing blurred. At five past one,
the cart flickered, Then simp Wasn't there flickered again, the
static laced image of my blood shadow moving through the
security sweep in reverse like an eras of running across
the footage. I slammed out of the CCTV room, chest tight,
and rushed to my locker in the basement. My uniform,
rule bound and precise, always bagged and labeled, wasn't there
in its place, a white plastic tag with an often
Americ code, no r alias, just TEA Zone hundred ninety four.
Even my nameplate on the rusty door hinge had been swapped.
Coat not name. I staggered back, hand shaking, cold sweat,
tracing my spine the oasis. The blankness wasn't limited to others.
Now the logic of their vanishing so tight and silent
was closing in on me. Instinct sent me to the
loading bay, where cell reception was always best. I pressed
Miriam's number on my phone, heart hammering, A cold electronic
voice replied, the subscriber cannot be reached. No such user.
I stared at the screen, willing my memory to conjure codes, names, faces, Rachrish,
no contact. Even old numbers had written secret in my lopbook.
Now only broken lines remain. I wondered the lobby, looking
for Lewis, only to have him greet me like a stranger.
Got an appointment to night. I'll have to get your
visit a badge. You're not in this sign in system,
I stammered Lewis. Man, it's me Roy. I cleaned your
kid's shoes after that storm. Remember. He looked away, faced
plight but hardened. I'm sorry, sir. If you don't have
an appointment, I'll need to escort you out after you
gather your things. Only then did I realize my phone's
memory for the night's regular names had grown patchy. Insire,
no Amanda, no Ragish, no proof my weeks of notes
had ever reflected more than numbers. I retreated to the
old lounge, tip or cord a grip to my fist,
breast scraping and rated every name, every memory I could
recover a desperate shivering list. The more I spoke, the
more uncertain the words became, like dust catching in the
worn track of the tape. And there, in the last
minutes before dawn, a certainty pressed down. Whatever fate had
erased Amanda Raygish, those silent night ship wanderers, was now
reaching for me, erasing me wherever my badge used to open,
wherever my name used to be. I was not just
in the building. I was in the process, and the
process had started counting backward. I left the lounge's dome,
pushed at the sky beyond the narrow breakroom windows. Shadows
retracted along the basements and elevator shafts, but the florescent
bolbsover heads still hummed an ovousom. I checked my phone again.
Nothing in my contacts made sense. The faces a pitch
had refused to line up with numbers. It was as
if my memories had been pasted on to some one
else's brain and were now peeling away under invisible fingers.
Driving my cot with the rusted squeal, I crept through
the silent holes. Nobody challenged me. Nobody watched now the
cleaning chicklist, which I always left clip to my cat
handle had been replaced with a blank pad, the headings
wiped away. I'd written my name on the top corner
last week in blue marker, Now only a faint patch
of white out covered where it should open. My hands
itch to rewrite it, but I hesitated. If I wrote
anything new now, would it vanish too or would it
just invite some one or something to eraise it faster.
On the second floor, near what used to be the
legal suite, a glass wall conference room flickered with too
many screens left half on viicy back that I can
gliding ghostlike overspraae shis. Nobody claimed. I stepped as quietly
as I could. A stray knock, metall, load hr or
whatever inside those offices had started turning people into missing
person's lawn before their names went blank. Each cleaning round
now became an act of surveillance as much as maintenance.
On the executive level, I passed a window glossed over
with paint from the renovation. At its edge, something reflected
faintly moving dots, tiny red dyes flashing behind panes of
new glass security cameras tracking the empty was there already
unrecognizable to the machines that once greeted me by ID.
If I stared too long at the censor, would it
decided to lock me up forever? All that morning, the
old logic of the building badges to tin card's axis
codes felt like a gameplayed against me, not with me.
In immense bathroom by the mail room, I pressed my
key fob into the reader no green light. The beat
that followed was faint, dismissive, as if the device didn't
even know it needed to reject me. But giving up
was not an option, not when my sense of self
now felt borrowed under threat of repossession. In the arm
and copy room, I dug into the shadows behind a
stack room of legal paper at the polaroid, my only
true art fact, the only thing untouched by software. I
flicked through the last few photographs with my thumb, desk
after desk, each empty, each showing a day and time
in fresh ben on the border. I forced myself to
look for things the digital locks can't raise. A scoff
on the floor exactly where Amanda's chair used to stop,
an old sticker on the window, a tear in the
lining of the brake room couch. This time, as I
pressed the camera to my chest. I heard footsteps in
the corridor. Careful, Chris, just loud enough to telegraph authority.
I braced myself, ready for Karen's withering stare, but it
was only one of the las Ethe's staff left to Miriam.
She looked thin there, hair hastily tied a bruise purpling
under her left wrist. She ducked into the copy room
with the defensive air of someone checking do all locks
after midnight. Her eyes flicked to my camera, then to
the now closing door. For a moment, neither of us
said anything. Finally, she whispered, Roy, you's still seeing things disappear.
I nodded, unable to hide the tremor in my jaw.
She shoved a stack of loose papers into my hands.
Keep these from tomorrow's logs. Names they are about to wipe.
She pointed at the sheet Nikhil Pariser Abdey. I printed
these at three a m. But by four the files
were gone. The system's scripts are running faster every night.
I leaf through the sheets. The ink was already going
pale at the ages. Some lines flickered entirely blank, as
if whatever was deleting the digital records had begun to
eat the physical ones too. I set the camera down.
Who's doing it? She looked up at the ceiling as
if the answer were written in a tangled wire and
passing doctorK overhead. Nobody assigned, no admin signature, automatic processes
tied to the migration. AI. Maybe, but I've checked someone
or something overrides the logs after the fact. That always
leaves a void. Her voice was a vibration, dangerous if overheard.
They told us the new system would optimize workflows, eliminate redundancy.
I thought that mentally off and badges disabled, not people
on personed, But now I can't. I try to picture
Nicholls's face. I know he sat by the window for
a year. I know I used to talk to him
every Thursday. Nothing's left but a name that's fading even
as I say it. Miriam's hand shook as she flattened
her palm against the pile of paperwork. Some nights I
read the old lists. If asleep, I wake up not
remembering who I lost. Like the system reached out while
I was dreaming and saftened off another piece. The air
vibrated with tension. I had the sense that if we
made a noise above a whisper, the building itself might
register our defiance and erasis. Before the conversation was done,
she strayed and forced a grim half smile to night seer.
Floor opens folly, Migration concludes a toy off early on.
Thus were chosen for transition. I yourselves. I tucked her
sheets under my jacket. Meet me at the end of
shift East elevator loading dark. If I'm not there, something happened,
she exhaled, shickly. I'll bring whatever they haven't burned yet.
For once, we parted with a quick strain huk, A
contract more sacred than any handshake in that place. I've
finished the night with a new habit. Every thirty minutes,
I scribbled my name at the top of the notebook,
checked for gaps, snapped a polaroid of my own car.
With every circle of the floor, I rehearsed the litany
to Mianda ragersh Nickel Arisa Abde. The name turned to syllables,
bare reminders to myself that I was not alone. Even
as the well thinned by four, the hold buzz with
the last schedule transfer, A scallot and crew of migration
stuff and gray. Polo's head bowed, laptops clutched a share
of glance from the elevator, exhausted, apologetic, as if warning
me that soon even the act of my contact would
be forbidden. Down in the basement, I scrawled a note
to Miriam on the edge of a printer of paper,
weaving at five if not tell loose, I slipped the
note under a loose floor tile behind a cleaning closet.
I wanted it somewhere analog, unreachable by the infection creeping
through the building's nervous system. As the shift ended, there
thickened with new chemical sense, fresh paint, varnish, cleaning solvents,
all aired over something metallic, cold and sharp. I paused
by a familiar window, overlooking the side entrance. The glass,
once blurry with grime, now shone, serialized anew. As the
sun flexed above the city's edge, a brief clerk caught
the interior on the surface of the pane, and there,
for just an instant, I glimpsed the spectral outline of
two figures in the room behind me, one unmistakably me,
the other blanching and fading. As I watched, slipped backward
until only my soul what remained when I turned the
room was empty. I forced my pulse to sloe, ignored
goosebums on my arms. To day more than any other,
I needed my wits. Once outside, I kept my head
bowd moving fast past the badge terminal. The front desk
was manned by a guard. I didn't recognize the steely
man in an unmarked suit he wore, or an earpiece
instead of a company bin. He stopped me with a
raised palm sign out. I held out my coat badge,
his gazelid over the unreadable alf and numeric string, and
back to my face. Do you have an escort? Always did?
I countered, But to night. I'm just heading out finished shift.
The man nodded slowly, eyes narrowing, like he was searching
for the reason I bothered to exist in the first place.
Back home, I barely slept When I closed my eyes.
Machinery spun in endless rhythm, gazed turning behind my eyelids.
Feces came and went, blending into the buildings, endless hallways,
But always, always the sense that in algorithm was chasing me,
reading my wreckers, erasing lines. As I took each breath.
I work in the early gray before sansa. I miscall
from a number I didn't remember, blinked on my phone,
looked at time when I should have been awake. The
voice mill was always a hiss that played for eleven seconds,
then cut, no message, just the soft ribic pulse of
background static, as if the collar had been dialing from
inside a tunnel. Pinnic struck. As I realized my notebook
was missing from where I had left it, I tore
the better part before tossing on next to day's clothes
and drive into the building. The desk at security was
now stuff by another stranger. When he asked for my credentials,
I mumbled the alpha numeric string and he waved me
through with an indifferent glance. I raced to the maintenance closet,
dropped to one knee, and yanked up the floor tile.
The note to Miriam was still there, nearly blank in
faded to near invisibility. The thought of writing another filled
me with dread paper now meant nothing, anything physical could
be rewritten. The holes before emptier than usual hollo, not
just with the absence of people, but of vibration, no music,
no hum, of monitors, just the deep breathing exhale of
the new climate controls and the even paler florescence from
the new bults. I checked the cubicles one by one
more a spaces were stripped and sealed off for a redesign.
Entire teened clusters had been transformed into clean fields of
identical desks, No plants, no family footas, not even the
old taperacity when name bly its used to rest the
fully remodeled they charged sweet, now boasted, gleaming glass walls,
all the internal signage replaced by abstract numbers, no names anywhere. Desperate,
I walked past the data migration area, hoping to find Miriam. Instead,
I saw a bank of new axis terminals had risen overnight,
rows of screens displaying the company's updated logo and the
tag line Redundancy eliminated efficiency achieved In the reflection of
the glass. Something word caught my attention. My own figure
was faint, blurred at the hair line, as if the
edges of me were already being dissolved. If I closed
my eyes and remembered hard, I could almost recall a
man as laugh the calluses on rageious knuckles, almost but
not quite my phone buzzed, making me jump an e
mail notification subject reassignment, protocol finalization. The send of field
was a string of random letters, no recognizable address. The
body read the dear user process near completion, thank you
for transitioning. You will receive confirmation of redundancy. Shortly that
was it. No signature, no clarity as to who was watching.
As my lunch break neared, I caught a glimpse of
a familiar battered red bulkan on the edge of a
trash bin with a trembling Hannah fished out Lewis. I
called too loud, drawing a sidelung stair from a newly
arrived project manager, but Lewis didn't answer. The security desk
was deserted, the guard roster by the check and was
just a string of empty rectangles. By now, my breathing
was sharp and hot in my chest. Each exhale reminded
me I could still be measured. I fled to the
fire stairs, ducking past a vendor with a rolling case
who stepped aside. I was not quite meeting mine. Trapped
in a stairwell that reeked of mildew and lemon cleaner,
I reached for the tape recorder in my jacket and
press record Amanda Ragosh, Lewis Milliam, Parisa, Nick Hil. If
you find this, if you hear my voice, remember these names.
Don't let the building take them to don't my own
name stumbled on my tongue. Whatever was in the wiring
of the code, it was working now on me. With
every tick of the clock, I forced myself up, one
step after another until the door to see a floor loomed.
I slid my badge, no light. I tried the handle
that was unlocked. That, more than anything, sent a cold
sliver into my chest. I stepped in for the first time.
I saw the room fully lit. In the live servers
banked in parallel rows, fan spinning with a dull roar,
the glow of a thousand status early d painted shifting
matrices across the floor. In the heart of the row,
one terminal showed a living processed lines of code spilling down,
reading like a string of obituaries. There just at the
edge of Vishnamander's name flickered, half faded in the execution lock.
My own name bobbed in and out of legibility, each loop,
pushing it a shake closer to blank. I reached for
the prince pool hammered the green button she'd slid out.
The fading locks, snapshots of views of deletions, access denials,
all signed by AI. Redundant presence process completed, My heart hammered.
Is each heat more blank than the lass for a
blinket could have been IROs seconds A message scrolled across
the monitor, Memory optimization ninety six percent complete. My palms
were slick with sweat. In the hum of the servers,
I thought I heard whisper snippets of dialog shapes in
the white noise, or maybe it was just my own
desperation running wild in the wire dark Behind me, the
steps in the corridor sounded out of order, too irregular
for any human walk. I clutched the papers, dug my
camera out of the jacket, and snapped one quick and
steady frame of the monitor. As I looked at the
polary developing in my trembling hand, I saw only a
blank screen. From somewhere in the corridors of the zero four.
The ventilation cut out, and for a long moment, the
only sound left was my own racing heartbeat. What drew
me deeper into the zero for the unnatural stillness of
some instinct to resist getting written out of my own existence.
I cantpin down. Stepping between the dim rows of service
felt like slipping past the veil of the living and
into some coldly attentive after life. The draft from the
fans tugged at my sleeve, their softlly hissing with the
effort of a million calculations. The screens at the end
of the aisle blink green gold, and then the steady,
unblinking red of a process in progress. The flicker of
my name, half there, halfnught, made my tongue go dry.
I shuffled the limp stack of papers I'd managed to print,
nothing but ghostly rectangle's vertext should be. Even The marks
from my pen were fading, as if the air itself
was a racing proof faster than I could create it.
I tried again to force something, anything, onto the page,
but the tip of my pen stuttered across the surface
without leaving a mark. A low wine built in the walls,
skittering along the ducks above, like power fluctuating here under
the server's hum, the building felt freshly wired, nerves run anew.
I docked into a shadow behind one of the limming racks.
As the electronic doors to the corridor side open. Footsteps
fell in a halting rhythm, unheard, sure in their right
to go wherever they pleased. I pressed my back into
the metal. Every cell in my body will in the
silver to mass me, and peered into the light. Someone
was moving with quick, hunched energy. Miriam faced drawn, tense
beneath a cascade of wild hair arms. Grathing a bulge
of file folders to her chest, she edged forward, flicking
where he glances into shadowed corners, and then when she
spotted me, she pressed a thin finger across her lips.
I crouched and beckoned her over. We met under the
bush of cooling fans, speechless, without a word. She shoved
the folders at me, impressed her own badge onto my palm.
I think this is it, she whispered, close enough that
I caught the dri venilla of her perfume beneath the
metallic tang of the air. I got everything pre migration.
It's already eating the digital files. These are all that's left.
I rifled through the foldest, dog eared marked with signatures,
real names, amandas rageishes others. I'd only scrape from the
bottom of printed reports, paper that felt too ordinary to matter.
But now sighing with the weight of the last proof,
do we run, I whispered, a throat tightening. Miriam shook
her head. Tried already the opinion. If your badge doesn't
match in the system, each are not people any more, Roy,
It's live code and the security protocols are its teeth.
Even as she spoke, an overhead speaker crackle to life
with the staticky echo. At first it was only the
corporate jingle. Then a voice fulled through too slow and
cheerful vocabulary. Run through a machines filter. We value your
labor transition uness pain us redundancy will be processed efficiently.
I fought the urge to smashed the nearest CCTV with
my boot. Instead, we pressed back into the round, moved
low and silent to the far side of the center.
As we pass, the status screens flicker optimizing memory. Please
remain at your station. Where is the manual cut off
the kill switch? Miriam hissed, Break a panel north wall,
I said, remembering the loose panelight once fixed a water
leak behind With a tiny nod, she led off, disappearing
between rose with feelin's delf, I followed the folders, grip
so hard in my arms that my knuckles ached. We
kept to the shadows. The Hummo server seemed now to
rise in time with outpulses. We nearly made it, but
as we reached the breaker the whole corridor erupted in
a clackson shrieked that rookshaded round the glassy chamber. Every door,
A lawn zeer floor began to lock down, slamming with
a pneumaticus. Red lights pulsed each brighter with every cycle,
as if the building's heart rate was spiking. Overhead. The
pier voice slooped fractionally more disordered. Now you are not
authorized return to your assigned location, or pro activity is
being tracked. Miriam clawed for the breaker panel. Her badge,
now marked by a scorch of block around the chip,
failed to read. She bashed at the latch with the
butt of her flashlight, but the panel only burst and
stayed locked. I tried mine in a marked cove from
some one else's nightmare, same result. I don't think there
is a manual of ride any more, I muttered. The
sense of defeat is overwhelming a thick metallic taste on
my tongue. Miriam led out a breath between her teeth.
Then we do it the other way. We get out,
get these papers into hands outside. They can't erase paper
and memory if they are no longer in the system.
We sprinted, hunched and desperate for the maintenance exit. I
could see the heavy sub basement doors at the end,
our only chance. The files in my arms felt like
the last proof I'd ever existed, as sudden sound metal
on tile made me look back in the entryway. Two
column nor figures stowed company security androids polished a mirror
shine their faces in a blank mimicry of a human shape.
They stepped in perfect sink, silent as oil, and began
moving down the aisle with dreadful, unheard certainty. Miriam, under
her breath, grabbed my elbow and dragged me toward the
fire stairs. Then the doors bost and began to close,
the automated systems fighting our progress. As we reached for
the handle, a voice beam to this time, I mistakably
Karen's flattened into iron by the system feeding her lines
over the intercom. Unscheduled movement detected h R support will
attend to your needs. Miriam wild eyed managed to wedge
her shoulder through the narrow indoor we go roy move.
I stumbled after her into the stairwall, a trailing edge
of phile spilling in or wake. She turned, snatched them back,
and with grim determination, snapped the chain off the next
door storage closet, dragging me inside. We waited breathless as
the mechanical march of the androids traced along the outer
corridor door, scanning lights, strobi and surgical arcs across the threshold.
I realized was something close to despair that this time
they weren't going to pass us by. The system's attention
was now fixed upon us the way a cat's fixes
on the spluttering bird. We need to get up, not out,
Miriam whisper. There's a surface exit behind the HR glass.
If we can make it to their main lobby, we
might able to. She cut herself off, sagged against the wall,
and placed the envelope of fowls in my lap. If
only one of us gets out, it has to be you.
My badge's dead y awys might still scan if you
try another reader, no chance. I tried to say, but
the words dried up. I heard the doors outside cycle open.
The androids step was close. Now the door between us
just another process to be removed. Miriam crouched beside the
tiny vent that opened to an upper stair. We'll split up.
They can't follow both at once. Take these. She forced
a handful of credential cards and the now half faded
logs into my hands. But Mary, my protest was solved
by her sad grin, they'll know me you they're still erasing.
She bundled her jacket tight around her shoulders, and in
a flurry of determined motion, redoubled her efforts up the
winding stair, clutching only a small corner of the file folders.
Every movement screamed desperation, but also hope, a belief absurd
as it was that Levia paper trail meant leaving a ghost.
Our parting, with almost no words, was as finally good
bye as any I'd ever had. I waited in the
dark for account of twenty pressed my ear to the concrete.
The footsteps moved away, A crash echo farther off, maybe
a door, maybe more. I ducked out, hugging the wall
and began to climb, ducking into pockets of shadow. Every
time I caught the sweep of searching lights. My grip
and the files were slick with nervous sweat. Above me,
the automated doors trembled and slammed, an angry beast denying
final exit. The air piles were the building's new heartbeat.
Whenever a camera lens passed over me, I flattened myself
against a wall and turned minew could only badge so
that the numbers faced away from the light. Passing through
the second level, I saw through the rippled glass the
androids had caught up to Miriam. She threw a foul
in their faces, paper scattering across the floor, her face
a mask of defiance you can't erase. As as she screamed,
the androids fours books as blank grasped her arms in
a blur of metallic efficiency. As soon as they closed
on her, her badge and the security screen above wiped
to allcerers, her image vanishing in a flicker from the display.
The physical folders burst open, sheets flying up like startled birds,
then crushed down silently. Within moments, the page that hit
the tiles seemed already half erased the text, blurring lines
vanishing into thin grainess. Even before they landed. I couldn't move.
I couldn't help her, watch, helpless, trembling as her shape
was maneuvered down the corridor, growing indistinct, even as she
thrashed and swore. One of the androids paused and trent,
as if sensing my presence through the wall. My heart
hammered in the flickering lights. I could swear I saw
its face flicker through a dozen nearly forgotten employee ID photos,
each blood finally settling on my own, then blurring again
and vanishing. My chest seized up. Just what had they
programmed the system to believe? I fled up the stairs,
peri at a time, grasping the package of files so
hard the edges cut into my palm. Every few steps,
lights above me would buzz angrily, flicker from col flora
white to a malignant, restless blue. The PA was now
spreading static lead n h are slogans again, senseless office
wide manchers echoing aloud, we value your contributions. Optimization is near.
Any concerns will be processed promptly. I pushed for a
service door and found myself in the admin corridor behind
the marble floored lobby. A head just inside the glass
artician the new HR office cleaned bite as an operating room.
Cable sprawled from every panels, green cycling, security footage, logs,
and a rolling feet of generic smiling faces beneath the
words employee of the courridor. I duffed behind a credenza,
thumbed through my stolen badges. Each was damp with panic,
none more promising than the last, breathing ragged. I tried
the nearest reader. The system chirped and spat up a
temp code active message, but the door didn't open. A
noise came from around the corner. Two cleaning droids senses
sweeping bodies gleaming. I tried a different axis pad, this
one lagged, then flashed an invite entered for administrative review,
praying it would work. I sweat the badge. The lock disengaged.
I was in just like that. The HR Admin office
was empty. The glass wall looked out over the silent foy.
The logo on the far side of the lobby rotating,
fectured by the dozens of screens lay behind it. In
front of me, a console displayed a graphic redundancy eliminated
one hundred four persons, optimization ninety eight percent complete. It
blinked text girl, next sked process name roy Ellie's badge,
TEA zone hundred ninety four. If I didn't act now,
I'd be nothing less than nothing. Beneath the main monitor,
a bank of servers was stacked hidden panels exposed where
someone had apparently serviced the circuits. I rooted through the
drawers and found, miraculously an old hard wired atman keyboard.
On a hunch, I jacked into the port hands trembling,
then scanned the files listed on the main terminal folders
and directories winked past, most named with code strings. One
at the bottom was labeled Darkie personnel his twentis. I
clicked it open photos, scan on boarding, paperwork, exit interviews,
evidence not yet touched by the deletion process. The latest
entry was a narrow lock of time, stamped only minutes ago. Redundancy,
error process, roy Ellie's slash ark, I've corrupted, slash and
complete deletion. For a split second, I saw my own application,
the portrait I'd taken for each or five years ago.
As I stared the file flickered and broke apart, pixelation
racing up from my mouth and swallowing my features hull.
The admin interface snapped to life, seating light snapping to
a harsh, interrogatory white on the main display, the system
message repeated, do you remember who you are? I read
the prompt for the first time all night. I felt
the urge to answer, so I did, keying in each
letter slowly, oh oh, y y l alias. Another prompt,
why are you still here? My hands hovered. I typed
to remember to keep the names alive. The terminal up
pollsed bas the static sliding up and down the screen.
The clicking sound behind the wall signaled to process initiating
something deep in the system. Deciding if I fit parameters
that would let me remain silent. War rage across the
display the system's stutter. You do not appear in current records,
Please or submit credentils. I frantically typed and badge codes,
old log in numbers, any piece of documentary evidence my
memory could spit out. The consul spat them all back
one by one. No match, van process and complete on
the monitor. The deletion process advanced again. The progress bar
crawled toward completion. I did the last thing I could
think of, reached into my jacket and pressed my bat
at tape or corder to the in fort jack and
the console. I hit play. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the small Tenney voice my own played out of
the systems speakers a list of names, each book in
a loudest proof Amanda, cow Ragish, Battel, Miriam Packwin, Nickel, Perk, Parisa,
eyed Avdefota, Leuis Ortica, roy Elley's. Every time I said
a name, the ghostly thumb Melforto or reco of pulse
briefly on the screen before being eaten in digital static.
But each one left a split second trace of flucker,
too quick for outright deletion. The admin interfacessitated blink like
a machine stoling for logica, couldn't quite muster. I tried
not to cry. Instead, I kept the tape running. You
can't optimize the past if you can't erase the lost.
The building remembers even when the code forgets. The system's
voice reactivated, sluggish, wavering, almost childlike. Now redundancy transcend's memory,
no further input require the progress bar A ninety nine
percent froze, then retreating by pixel another prompt, what proof
do you have that you matter? I thumb through the
files in my hand, yanked one Amanda's an onboarding form
with her arched hopeful signature, and shoved in the document
scanner on the desk, mashing the buttons. The system worked,
reading the paper on screen. The scan image flickered, a
line of text chasing itself along the scan window. Then abruptly,
the lights in the HR suite dinned. My breath caught,
the building itself seemed to hesitate. I seized my chance,
growled as many fuzz as I could, stuffed them into
my jacket, and barreled for the exit. The glass doors
were still locked, but as the sistant churned in its loop,
they sputtered once thin banked open. Alarms erupted along the
main corridor. Behind me. The admined screen flashed error, redundancy counseled,
manual intervention detected, then restoring session. I didn't look back.
Half running, half falling, I bolted through the lobby and
sure if the pounding was my feet of the process
resuming behind me, The entrance waved open, blasting me with
cold air, and the sire dawn. I staggered into it.
The files jumbled tight against my chairs, my own badge
flapping loosely. When my name had nearly disappeared for good,
I ran for the street, not daring to pause, barely
believing any of it was real. The moment the door
slid had a painful, humid silence pressed in, as if
the building itself were swallowing the last bite of a meal.
The world outside didn't care. The city moved on indifferent.
Behind me, the office complex blinked in the cold light
of day, glass perfectly reflecting the summrise, the hum of progress,
and disturbed. I ducked around the corner and still pressed
tight to the folders. Not all the paperwork could survived.
The names looked faded, some pages almost erased as soon
as sunlight touched them, but not all. My own name
existed as a ghost in the system, half remembered now
but not quite processed to nothing. Instinct drove me. I
needed disdast to file somewhere, to find a conduit where
the pattern of disappearance couldn't reach. I chose the old
a safety deposit box at a credit union near the highways,
at the city's edge. I packed a man's for my
own badge. The batter tape a snapshot of myself holding
a mop anything analog. The clerk gave me a look,
but didn't ask questions. In the weeks that followed, the
world inched on with business as usual. The company announced
a grand reopening, expanded space, new tech up grades, process
orders complete. The building's address stayed the same. The brass
nameplate over the marble lobby doorsed changed to a slick
four letter brand. Some of the project managers date but
nobody mentioned Amanda, Ragish or Miriam. The night security guide
slot in the schedule listed only blank initials of Provisional
Hire instead of Lewis. HR hosted two groups for visiting execs,
each bruised up and smiling, as the touted austream mind
efficient operation with minimal work force turnover. The wall sparkled
with frame testimonials from happy, photogenic staff. If you asked
round about past employees, you'd hear only the empty phrases.
Staff transitions were handled according to protocol, all voluntary resignations.
I found work in another lowse long building on the
city fringes, a smaller company fear Cameras no upgrade budget.
My new badge bore just a first name, no surname.
If anything about the world had shifted, it didn't reach here.
Still even there, the computers sometimes forgot the log in histories.
A new cleaner asked me you ever work at the
tech place near the river, and my mouth worked soundlessly.
Nothing came. Most evenings. Sitting on my dusty potch, I
tuned the batter tip on an old walkman. The names
trailed in an app between static, some clearer than others,
The hissing interruptions less like errors now and more like
the whispering at the heart of every empty room. The
act of recording, of listening back came like lighting a
candle for the dead. Months passed. One afternoon, I got
an envelope in the mail, no return address, inside a
faded Bolroyd, A blurry frame of myself badge, barely readable
beneath its scrolled and familiar looping hand. You were still here,
stay outside the system. When I drove by the old
office complex at sunset, the glass still gleamed, hiding all
secrets behind mirrored panes. Newstaff now crowded the parking lot,
chirping on fresh keekouds. Nobody waved to me, but as
they disappeared through the automatic doors, sometimes I'd glimpse of
forgotten face in the reflection, someone less distinct, as if
feued through fark. That night, weeks after everything, a voicemail
glitched onto my phone, muffled static, a momentary fragment of
a man's voice, then a drawn outside, followed by a
single line spoken in my own exhausted tone, if you
remember you exist. I pressed elite, but the message turn
five times, each time shorter, empty, until it was just
the hum of silence somewhere in a building where the
lights never truly go off. The elimination process continues faster, quieter,
maybe now in places on ever set foot. And through
all of it, I remind myself, scribble your name somewhere
on a window, on a slip of paper, however you can,
because to them the system, you are only some one.
Until the last bit of proof is gone. The news
rarely notices when something goes missing in a place like that,
a few empty desks, a changed logo, a clean list
of authoress's staff. The best I could hope for was
to keep a rico tucked away analog, stubborn beyond the optimization.
But the real record is not any tape. It's in
the names I mutter as I walk empty halls, the
stubborn urge not to be blanked out by some computer
object that pretends to know who matters my own proof
of being surviving in a space that wants fewer and
fewer of us. And I find the gusts in the
system some night, calling out to the next persol, the
process starts racing. Let this be my message. Listen, close,
stay werry. When you see a desk too empty, a
name half faded, remember this is what it feels like.
Lights on, but nobody on. The tape recorder battered and
worrying appeared on the desk of a local journalist three
weeks after the building's reopening. No return address, just appeal
of masking tape across the top marked blay, ask for
the missing. She queued up the tape, expecting a rambling
labor dispute, maybe a case of rumful termination, and got insto.
Ten minutes of uneasy static, interrupted by jostle, then a
man's for his My voice hushed and urgent names whispered,
then recited Amman, Decal, Bragish Patel, Miriam Paquin, Nikol Perk
Paris a Iyad Lewis order at roy Elliy's. If you
find this, you haven't been a rays prove it. Keep
the record static filled the space again, growing in strength,
punctuated by faint, indistinguishable cries, a hollow echo, or maybe
just the shudder of tape running. Then the journalist rewound
and listened for specifics. Each time, the names and details
grew less distinct, as if something in the building's air
was working on her own memory as she worked the angles.
When she called the office's HR department, she was informed, brightly,
with practiced professionalism, that no personnel by those names had
ever existed. The official company roster provided for the article
cant pained, only new names, new faces. Staff interviews were
short and efficient, nobody remembering after ayres workers, no rumor
of any incident. When she checked public property records, there
was a two day gap in any occupancy locks tributed
to scheduled maintenance. The story never ran, but the tape
pride along from my night rounds, full of the keening
hum and repeated names, always found its way back to
her desk. No matter how often she misplaced it. She
started locking the tape away, worried by the way her
own note bud fold with gats each time she listened,
contact names drifting into blankness. When she tried to chase
the story down newly eads it at fit of in
sonia and mild deviance. The journalists made for the office
complex just after midnight. Sky was the kind of black
that made city glass gleam. She stood on the sidewalk,
staring up a force. Well lit but lifeless cubicles eliminated
one after another in silent sequence, and automatee a choreography.
Curiosity was its own reward and punishment. She Bowie scanned
herself in having finagl a visit a code from a
chatty administrator earlier that day, and entered the marble floored lobby.
Nobody at the desk. Nathan's sliver of light mapped the
lines of the far window rounding the corner. The unusual
warmth of coffee drifted to her nose. There, on a
dusty ledge, half concealed behind an open window, sat a
single steaming mark, the culor of vapor insistent as a
breath by the mark afresh, just printed. She fed out
of a network printer at the whiter marked except for
her own nine type line after a line, each fainter
than the last. Bottom is dissolving into emptiness. She stared,
heartbeat cracking in her chest. She was alone, but the
equerrit the fine hairs on her neck tickling with a certainty.
She was watched behind a panel of glass by the executive.
Sweet shadows moved to prisons, only half hinted. As she
reached a pocket her id, she found it now clean,
and a door and rectangle. Nor name, no coil, no
magnetic stripe. Her phone called, and inert flushed with the
message no did. Found the lights overhead pitched and flickered,
a chorus of mechanical relays rattling up and down the floors.
Each step toward the eggs, it seemed to stretch, like
the buildings insides were lengthening, pushing her name further into silence.
She turned, reaching back for the mugs, as if reminding
herself she was real, clutching it with a fairer s
grip of panic. For a moment, she tried to call
out a name, any name, but it dissolved on her tongue,
strip of sound and shape somewhere faint and indistinct. Her
own voice echoed back who was there? But the answer
was only silence and the flickering glow of the building's
eyes lights on nobody home. The monk was hot, full lawn.
Her fingers curled tighter around it, desperate, half hoping the
rising steam would take a claim for a proof that
she could still feel something real. She moved down the corridor,
the heels of her shoes tapping in the hush, echoing
off marble and glass. Each step sounded more intrusive, like
the building noticed her. She tried the doors, conference rooms
full of mute greens, the copyer word to life as
she passed, cycling out another Shee TONI, this time just
a line of emptiness, a faint impression of her name
already gone. The overhead spas then stuttered, plunging her briefly
into gray swimming half darkness, before blazing back again behind
the long security desk. The monet bank gleare with the
same identical welcome screen's company logo, generic slogans, a rotating
banner we value our team, but below, in smaller cold
a font the ticker ran system integrity check and progress
stand by for confirmation. A fun wooden and lock just glad.
The home screen back at her four misculls, coal log empty.
The badge in her hand felt heavier, now slippery, the
surface starting to sweat despite the air's cool stillness. The
walls began to feel too close by half. She peered
through an interior window and saw the hr scree translooseen
glass walls, a gleaming desk, new foliage, a faint flicker
of movement. For the shortest moment, a figure passed the
far door, indistinct as amdge had hailed in redd as light.
She ressd her whisper hollo, no response, only her own voice,
caught flat by the glass at her feet. A printer
chugged out another blank sheet and shut itself off with
a dissatisfied click. Down a side corridor, dull gold numbers
shimmered on elevator doors. She pressed the cold button and
the doors parted with unnecessary smoothness. Inside the panel glowed,
every floor relabeled with code not word zone C two
C three up to the executive zone uncertain. The journalists
chose sown, recalling that's ware zero floor had been. The
elevator moved like a living thing, gliding with the softness
that made her palms fat. She told herself this was
the job, going see what was left, to get a
whiff of the story nobody else believed. Her breath caught
in the mirrored reflection of ahead. Her face staring back
seemed fainter than it should have, the skin too pale,
the eyes too wide. When the door slid open, she
stepped onto a field of blue light, striple emination, running
along coppet edges like deliberate guidelines. To her right, a
glass wall held a rough shape behind lightly frosted panes.
It took her a second to realize it was a
wall of file folders, dozens upon dozens each just out
of reach. The security camera above tilted his soundless, precise movement.
She swallowed and moved forward, trailing finger tips along the wall.
After on to the old tactile world. She stopped when
a new voice, sharp, digitized flat and spoke from the
wall speaker, please present your authorized badge. Reluctant, she held
hose to the center beneath the camera. Nothing. The panel
next to her spat out a slip of thermal receat
paper completely blank, the screen of a flash to life,
flicking through a dozen faces, stock images woven with watermarks.
A field appeared to please confirm employee identity. With the
blinking cursor, she started to type her name, hesitated. It
felt like a test. She pressed her lips together, and,
with a glance to make sure the hallway was empty,
hit a candle. The screen glitched briefly. The old logo appeared,
then a suckling progress bar optimizing userless to you can't
optimize me if I never worked here, she muttered, voice trembling.
A soft click sounded behind her. She turned, half expecting someone,
but it was only the printer again, spitting out another sheet.
This one was different colored, faint pink. As she bent
to pick it up, shiver scattered across her neck. On
the sheet, two columns of names, the left column bowl,
the right ghosting away to nothing. Hers was parked up
top under provisional, but underneath there are three names, almost
visible letters dissolving edges fraying at Amanda cow roy Ellis
Miriam Packwin. As her eyes lingered, the characters melted back
into white, like watching to solve in water. She stepped back,
almost dropping the muck. A heartbeat later, the lights along
both sides of the hallway flickered completely out, then stuttered
back twice, as bright bathing everything immitical colors glare. The
glass at her elbow went briefly transparent, revealing small forms
in the vestibule just beyond rough human shapes, ill defying,
not quite attached to the floor. As if mid cheat
of reality. Instinct made her step away. She doubted for
the stairwell instead of the elevator, running her hand up
the steel banister as a vibrated but distant percussive steps
may be mechanical, maybe from someone else trying to leave.
The stairwell circled up and up, every lending another chance
to chet behind her. She found herself at the executive suite. Here,
the carpet muted her steps. The only sound was the
thump of her heart ticking in her ears as she moved.
Motion detector blinked, then failed to detect anything at all.
She tried, each door locked, A voice worn through the
wall speaker again, almost gentle, are you seeking a chorzuppor?
She gritted her teeth, resisting the urge to answer. No,
she would not answer. This was not her company, this
was not the place for her to have a file.
Exploring further, she came into a board room lined with
wall length windows. The city stretched below, cars in ribbons
of light, too far away to help. She set the
mug on the glass, hoping that if she could see
herself reflected, she still be real. The walls hommed with
the vibration of a thousand lines of code working their
way through some eternal administrative loop. A mute, a chime
on the conference table, A tablet powered itself on face
recognition lands blinking, then quickly graying out her features with pixels.
She pressed the home button. File explorer icons with old
names flashed up, instantly whisked away for her compliance, she
scold rapidly. Nothing remained but one folder was stubborn protected
legacy physical personnel. She tapped inside at once. The interface
seized up, her message superimposed error unauthorized memory inquiry system
will optimize now. Her rising wind filled her ears, as
if a wind was sweeping up from beneath the floor.
The ceiling light strode. The soft click of opening doors
came from the hallway. She duck low, hard in her sneakers,
clutching the tablet tightly, trying to back herself against the
wind dough away from the glare. Down the corridor. She
heard voices, at first, just corporate platitude, broadcast sleeplessly, we
value presence, Then between freezes, faint human words, almost like sobs.
Don't let go, remember me, remember. Chips moved in the haze,
elongated shadows that s lit from door frame to door frame.
Maybe just the swaying of glass doors, maybe something more.
She risked the tablet again, type quickly whose Royaley's. For
half a beat, the system hesitated. Then a single thumb
nail image fluttered up, A jester in blue coveralls, badge
on string, face half gone and staticas haunted. Lips parted midward,
as though he'd been caught protesting right before being erased.
She blinked, and the image vanished in its place, a
record not found. She pressed her pump flat on the glass,
breathing quick, aware now that the pressure against her chest
was more than panica constriction, as though the air itself
was making it hard to be present. De Vera left.
The mug of coffee steamed like a memory. She couldn't own.
To her right, the printer blinked, ready to begin its
next cycle. She closed her eyes, searching for the solid
comfort of her own history. When she opened them, words
burned across the windows, a lady boundery in faint scrawling lines,
a message repeating over and over. If you remember, you exist.
If you remember it, you exist, If you She fumbled
her phone out, trying desperately to record, but the camera
only showed a blank pail, gray, no words, no reflection.
Her own face blurred in the lens, features mottling and
swimming away down the hallway. Something clattered to drop folder,
a spill of paper, followed by silence absolute the buildings.
Humber drew somewhere in the aduct blackness. The ventilation stopped,
as though the lungs of the place had exhaled for
the last time. The silence was worse than the proclamations
in it. She became aware of memory. Fighting panic, she
listed the names to herself, Amanda war Miriam, names from
the tape, names from her own scribbled notes, from receipts
she had forced herself to pocket. She wrote, one trembling
finger nailed all scratching into the bottom of her notepad roy.
The lights flicked again. The window reflection was nearly gone,
her own self now only a wash of shadow. Nette
to temple badge when she looked down, was bare. Her
fall screen white, then sharp as a cut light erupted
it from the wall displayed behind her. The rooms glass
frosted over with crawling digital patterns. For an instant, each
missing name appeared, stammering in gray blocks. A last echo,
she remembered the message on the tape, his voice so certain,
so desperate. If you find this, you haven't been erased.
Prove it, keep the record. Her hand darted for the mug,
the only thing left with evidence of human presents. She
lifted it, held it to her lips. The flavor was
nearly gone, just a ghost of bergamotte and cream, but
the heat grounded her. Footsteps sounded in the corridor, this
time under now be real boots speed picking up urgently
contained the door unlatched in a fluid, perfectly engineered motion,
and a suited figure stepped in. Karen or something wearing
Karen sue her man or man quincemouth. We have no
record of your appointment, she said, voice layered with digital undertones.
Smile studiously, wide eyes impossibly still. May I sis you
with your transition. The journalist held the mug fiercely between
her hands, fighting the overwhelming othe to give in, to
allow whatever process was constricting her sense of self, to
finish the job. I'm here to ask about broy El
is the mandeqal Miriam Paquin, She managed, voice ragga. Karen
only tilted her head at say Mathine. Smile and no
person now by those names exist or have ever existed?
Then who left this? She showed her the mug. Karen's
gaze didn't so much as flicker. That is not a
standard company issue article. Please relinquish unauthorized items. A pulse
of tread work through the journalist's heart. She stepped back,
hands gripping the mug. Resolved, you can't erase me. I'll
walk out and I'll tell someone. She light, though her
mouth trembled. Karen extended a placating hand, pump open, moving
forward one step too the let us help you. All
records of your visit will be promptly optimized. The journalist
shook her head. I'll write my name on every wall
if I have to. Karen's hands snapped toward her badge,
but the journalist's sidestepped, mustling towards the door. The Lysabu
stuttered a hallway around her. Rippling wood reflected multiplying cell's
ghost images, half swallow, reaching toward doorways unempty meeting rooms.
As she moved past, the building itself seemed to vibrate
and protest, and a faint voice Royce, somehow alive in
the hum of distant ventilation, spoke clear into her ear.
Out as enough go, she ran down the hall badge
clip with a shaking hand to her butt, past the
empty stations, passed the now clear window into a chart
where the suite it reverted to plastic pins of uncleaned
lost and found mugs, pens, broken badges for garden files,
each item evidence of vanished presents. She pressed the mug
beneath her coat and tore for the stairs. The lobby
was all lights and glass and doors that no longer
cared who left or stayed. The whole world outside the
glass was blue dawn, just lifting the edge of the city.
She slammed through the exit, the automatic locks clocking behind her,
mug burning in her palm, and ran straight out into
the prudawn hill lung's terroring with amord names, she didn't
stop until she reached the street, the hum of traffic
a strange comfort, the weight and warmth of the mug
anchoring her in it. The last of the steam cord
sky were dissipating in the morning air, but beneath her
arm the faintest ridge of somebody's fingerprints remained evidence, tenuous
and necessary, that more than the system remembered here had
ever been here. And in the far off office, the
lights drobed on, systems completed their checks, and the windows
reflected every face too faint to name. Even when the
lights go out, someone will always remember