Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. I stepped onto level three as
the sun bled out over the nearly empty parking lot,
casting everything through the foy's tinted windows in a dying
orange chaze. The overhead fulorescent set to motion sensors flickered
to full brightness as soon as I passed the stabilistatic
bus in the air that pressed against my teeth. Cubicle
stretched ahead Ghoes Town quiet. Only the soft, cold homophorestare
and the faint, cloying scent a plastic like a freshly
un rapped child's toy, made any claim to life. The
carpet had a faint depression where countless rolling chair casters
had created erratic pass od trails between workstations, and even
with heavy use. I paused at the door just long
enough to adjust my blueto thear piece. Immediately, the coal
buzzed in a muted number I had recognized as belonging
to mister Feldman from his earl at text, though his
actual voice startled by how frayed it sounded just log
and assass. He whispered barely above the threshold of a
mic as if he were afraid of being overheard to
read a drywall. Don't talk to any one too much, Okay,
don't stay late on three. Do your thing, but don't
drag it out, please. Some of the vendors are anxious.
I tried for a chuckle, but all I managed was
a hum a nod. Toned to open a new contract,
but property managers were a jumpy breed at the best
of times. I replied that I'd keep it fast and
an obtrusive, and slid the phone into my pocket fingers
called on the rubber's case. Inside. Every monitor step blankly
back and touched. Yet as I walked the row with
my checkis to the stand of welcome inspect cables, run pings,
check for mal where I found my focus Now, Each computer,
as I worked then to check IP assignments, displayed a
digital clock that was wrong, not just off by an
hour here or there. Each machine declared a different time
four thirty nine, ten forty eight pum two sivenbum seven
forty six am, and so on, not even in the
same ballpark, some ticking slowly, some racing forward, none in
any harmony with each other or with the time on
my own phone. I made a mental note to check
for a failed and tepie silver, but the scope was
strange even for a bad domain set up my six
work station blue Dell left stick appealed, came alive from
sleep with no input. The fan word for a moment.
A voice stuttered from its tinny speakers, so fast and
quiet it took me a heartbeat to register his speech.
A log out return returning the logins green shimmered. The
sound he keeped as if someone had spoken next to
the microphone, threw a mouthful of water. Then just as
quickly everything blanked and the monitor's orange stand by light returned.
I checked over my shoulder, Serdin, someone had slipped inside
behind me anty hole stretching to a supply room, a
shadow broken only by a mort bucket ghost in the machine. Sure,
in all my years patching routers and tracing erranpings from
meatspasce clients, something about this was out of joint. I
thumbed out quick stupid text to my friend Kelly, level three.
All the clocks are possessed. Maybe I'm in a time
slip zone. Her reply was nearly instant, as if she'd
been waiting. Don't get stuck in nineteen eighty seven. Lol,
if you see your own ghosts wave high for me.
When I looked up from the phone, my heart snagged.
In the reflection of the glass conference room door, A
shape moved, a blurred figure, not just my outline, lingering
just behind my left side. As I craning to see
over my shoulder. I whipped around since his spiking, but
the hallway was empty, keupical chairs idle, and the hush
my pulse statter, and I just laughed, assolving before it formed.
I wrote it off as lingering screen glare and kept moving,
though I checked the shadows more closely on the next
pass down the carpet, and kept my phone's camera ready
in my palm. A minute later, I found myself crossing back,
uncertain what I had already loved, feeling as if I
were orbiting my own footsteps. The humming between the lights
seamed sharper. It took real effort to shake the sense
that some one somewhere watched every step. One week before
all that I was just another overcaffeinated freelancer, juggled in
tiny contracts and bigger day dreams. My days tumbled together
in blank comfort microweap Berritoi's. I was listening to free
podcast's hosts review gadgets no one really needed, and the
endless customer calls that came with running my own modest
I tea troubleshooting gig if you needed a Wi Fi
repeater fixed a coffee shop's p us writers cleaned of
malware were a start of printer exercised. I wasier person.
I kept my apartments, bought in second hand couch, espresso maker,
backlog of library books, anything to keep renlow in my
even to peaceful. I've grown to savor a peculiar kind
of sology that came with these local jobs. A rhythm
stitch from short rides on my batter bicycle, the tap
and rattle of tools in my backpack, and after Irish
office here. If a job ever got too interesting, it
was usually an exploding tona cartridge kind of way, not
the corporate exiles variety that was half the appeal. Fixed
quietly yet pay move on. But beneath that I couldn't
deny a little itch for something different, something that didn't
leave my mind blank five minutes after shutting the car door.
Some nights, after too much you tube and not enough
real human conversation. I'd joke with my little sister Eliza
that I'd give anything for a gig where something's actually happening,
like a secret calf on the third floor. She'd laugh
and send me means about haunted workspaces. She'd say, better
buy some sage and holy water before you set up
a new print. A hup, Ye, no level threes of
just boud news, same everywhere. So when mister Felman called
that Wednesday and no number mid morning, I was in
between contracts, poking at a dead netgear ratter and listening
to a podcast debate about where the dart mode says battery.
His tone was the first thing that told me this
cold eat my usual. He didn't open a small talk,
just dived in. I need an experienced network tech for
a level free job, he said, it's persistently and STAB
already paid off two other firms and neither solved at
network clock issues where user complaints a bunch of systems
buzzing out just level three, can you come tomorrow? I
wanted to know more, but he just said, you'll see.
I can't explain it on the phone. The air of
secrecy carried more interest than warning, I accepted on the spot.
I textedvilized, after guess who's taking a gig on the
infamous Level three. She sent back a chain of holy
water emojusan don't let any of the lights flicker at you.
That's how it starts. I responded with a photo of
my Swiss army knife and a jerk about getting hazard pay.
We'll laughed it off, but I saved her number to
speed dial before leaving my apartment the next morning. The
office complex was peer Suburban's brawl, low rise rec single
stained baige, surrounded by parking and a mote of curve
grass that never saw child's footprints. Most businesses here coughed
along for years, insurance brokers, software consultants, two dental clinics,
the sword of spots that never drew attention unless they
shut down abruptly. Building beat, though apparently had a reputation.
Fellman warned me before I arrived. Only Level three's tenants
churned every couple of years. New companies threw up banners,
then quietly faded, un ceremonious and unremembered. No other floor
heard the problem that first day as they rolled my
toik it into the echoing lobby. No one at reception
would meet mause. When I mentioned Level three's wing. The
maintenance guybalding absently chewing a tubic, stood fixing a hard hat,
areas sign and mumble bad luck. Up there, elevators go weird,
we lose bulbs fast, not worth the overtime. Everywhere else
there was friction in warmth. I saw the second four
start of guy's bantering near the espresso machine, passing back
and forth, half finished code problems, music leaking out of
a break room. Was someone celebrated a birthday. The lobby
polls with the usual weekly hum, keyboards, chattering, phones, ringing,
the grind of someone's earnest, and bish echoing of glass.
But Level three was different. The stairwell up felt hollower,
as if the dryw itself sucked up all reverberation trapping
sounds before they could grow real. That first walk through copet,
a little softer underfoot, printed paper still stat perfectly, and
cabinets and touch was marked by a distinct absence, more
than anything I could name. No one greeted me an
eerie hush caught at the base of my skull, leaving
me impatient to finish already thinking about the espress, so
I promised myself as a reward. I survived the day
with nothing but a lock of normal maintenance complaints, a
reminder to check a one KDHDP table, and an er
to clean a pair of old ethernet jacks. If I
noticed anything at all, it was how infrequently the other
tenants seemed to include Level three in the afterward banterer.
No one ever said see you up on three, or
can we meet there tomorrow? It was always lower, meet downstairs,
let's talk in the lobby. That contrast struck me harder
as the days wore on. Downstairs had its start up energy, mess, joke,
spontaneous conversations, but up here, attempts at collaboration seemed stillborn,
Tasks finished and filed in brittle silence. It was as
if the space itself discouraged momentum. I chopped it up
to high turnover and dol decor, but by Friday I
couldn't shake the sense that Level three strangeness had only
started to reveal itself. On my second systematic check, I
brought it yellow legal pad, determined to take everything the
old fashioned way in case some glitchhaved my digital looks.
This was knew I'd learned over the years to trust
paper in weird environments, places where network grimmins liked to breed.
I made a column for each work station and an
extra for environmental notes, hoping to isolate patterns. The clocks
on the computers were still worn. Each shift they snapped
in you inexplicable times. One even counted backwards for a
moment before freezing. I copied the discrepancies, jotting annotations in
the margin. Something odd caught my eye under the fourth desk.
A square of white about thumbprint size stuck to the
underside of a particle board. It peeled up easily. A
thermal stick out, the kind you print to label boxes
or racks. On the face of it a set of
handrid in numbers four thirteen. I squinted. Those match the
work stations errant digital clock exactly down to the minute.
I bent down and checked the other cubicles. Nearly every
desk and the row had one of those stickers, each
gold with a time so matched the computer in front
of them. Others were off by enough to raise the
hair on my arms. Not a system m'd seen before,
not aset tagging, not compliance documentary, just numbers. Back at
the cluster of desks nearest the kitchenette, I met Sam.
Sam was one of the few actual boots on the
Grand staffers. I'd seen young k Poppins on the laptop
back strain into type with hands that were trembling just
enough to rattle the mouse pad. I perched next to
the break room table, trying not to startle them. Something
up with the drives again, I asked conversational, not wanting
to spook them. Sam shook their head, eyes darting to
the work station just as the digital clock rolled backward
and stopped to tend too. It's not the drives, they muttered,
half to themselves. It's time that here at good sideways,
I set alarms and miss meetings. Clocks jump. It messes
you up, but no one believes me. I wanted to
push for more, but Sam pulled their sleeves over their
knuckles and hunched deeper toward the keyboard. I recognized the
look someone living on coffee and bad's sleep, too exhausted
to risk more honesty. While tracing cables, I found another
odd marker email calendar invites in the out box were
being queued and sent at times that didn't correspond with reality.
Conference room bookings received at two fifteen hom for meetings
marked at three p'm the prior day. The software didn't
report any errors. Even stranger. The breakrim fridge was packed,
labels left over, his sodas, yogurt cups, all on the
edge of expiration, untouched. I opened the yogurt cart and
out of curiosity, the fall seal was still perfect, as
if forever packed up here, always intended to return, but
never did. A chime sounded to the elevator far down
the hall, registering a floor call at a time whine.
According to my new friends and maintenance, it shouldn't be
moving at all. I checked the floor display jitter, then
went dark. Back at the main desk, I noticed the
office of Voicemail indicated blinking insistently. The playback kyielded only static,
except for the final moment when something like a shop
in hail played over the line. Breathless and exhalene at
the same time. It sounded like someone trying to form
a word and thinking better of it. I packed up, mentally,
rehearsing how I justified running fresh diagnostics when management thought
everything was basically fine. Down the hallway. A Colt snippet
of a conversation from behind the opate glass of a
legal firm, sweet voices pitched too low for comfort. Did
ye see who was here late last night? Again? Always
just logs, never faces, can't be right. They moved off
before I could catch more. The conversation ended with the
door click, faintly out of sync with the footfalls. By
now my focus had sharpened almost to obsession. I needed
real evidence, logs, video, anything. On my next visit, I
chewed my usual half hearted checks and dug deep in
the ice closet, where racks of service poles quietly behind
cheap metal girls. I pulled up accesslogs while I saw
to her in my palms clammy. Every night, from about
one serum to five sea room, badge records more than
a dozen unique ones. At times showed people entering an
exiting level three, sometimes in clusters, Although times space minutes apart,
the logs didn't skip we cans or holidays. This contradicted
everything I'd seen. No one was here at those ires.
It felt like the phantom office ran a second schiff
on a visible time security camera feeds for those periods
were useless. File corruptions, static ovolais, video just gone. I
spent an hour of trying to extract anything salvageable, and
finally managed to restore one back up. A thirty second
grainy clip walked at the corners, like a table left
in some one's car too long in knit. Nothing moved
for half a minute. Darkness reigned, fractured by shirds of
light from the far side of the open plant floor. Then,
as if materializing from the air, a silhouette appeared in
the screen's left quarter, sitting heavily at a desk and
moving head bowed with a sharp jerk. The head straightened
and the figure stout straight at the security camera before
the feed cut out static, blurring everything into noisey nothing.
Days later, on a hunch, I called the building's genitorial
contract manager, hoping for a straightforward answer about the badge discrepancies.
Our people don't clean level free at night, she said,
with steely finality. I won't send them. After six we
locked the doors. The crew wouldn't come back. Heard things.
She wouldn't elaborate further. Whenever I tried to talk to
form a Level three employees tracking them through linked in.
Our company a Luney lists most ignored my messages. When
I finally got a reply from a next manager, Lena,
it was a single email sent at three in the morning.
Astros don't trust what you remember from up the asterisk.
That was it. No greeting, no signature, only dread in
the white space below. When I pressed Felman, the property manager,
he became a ghost himself, dodging car replying to emails
with canned lines. When I did finally catch him face
to face a mid day sight inspection, he shud off
the logs old floor, old sensors, people, exaggerate tech gets,
wid clocksdriff don't read into office gossip. The line was
so practiced I wondered if it was the only explanation
he'd ever offered. Meanwhile, something new dog in my steps.
Memory slips first so slight, I thought nothing of them.
I kept misplacing tools of crimper left behind. My MARKO vanished,
only to appear beneath paperwork I hadn't yet handled. I
started retracing steps, convinced I'd forgotten to finish a run
of diagnostics, only to find notes in my legal pad
in my handwriting sometimes out of order. A few lines
didn't look like my hand at all, scribbles with loops
and sharp serfs, where mine was always blocky and plain.
I told myself I was tired, distracted by the puzzle.
The last real straw was the night I decided to
push through after ires, sick of chasing shadows and half truths.
That afternoon, feigning a late conference call, I hid behind
start janitor's boxes in the utility closet, knees drawn to chest,
my phone set silent, personal audio recorder clipped inside my car.
The air was thick, heavy with ancient mop water and
copper toner. Just after midnight, the corridor outside changed. The
white noise deepened, Voices low and and hurried, rose and fell,
a language of work, but without feeling. I peered through
a slim slit and a closet door, in the swath
of cubicles flooded with darkness. I saw what I hadn't
dared expect. People, at least seven or eight of them,
all in neat business attire, moved in and out of
the emptied legal office. They spoke softly, voices always overlapped,
A continuous compulsitied murmur, each returned to a computer, never
the same one. Twice stations flared awake under their hands,
clocks blinking, login screens, visited and revisited. They worked in
total darkness, not a lump or phone screen lighting their faces.
No one reacted when a chair rattled or a monitor
issued a feigned alarm. Once, when my sleep brushed a
closet door, the nearest figure paused, tilting their head in
a way that made my ribcage titan, before resuming the
route dunks and keystrokes. Their movements were each rapic of
the last open file type, shrug, stand, circle, back, repeat.
I pressed record on my phone, not show what proof
I even wanted. The figures carried a sense of ritual
more than labor. The work repeated and precise, each task
slighted by its apparent meaninglessness. I noticed after the third
or fourth round that they kept resetting the clock, sometimes
turning them forward, sometimes backward, always different from the real eyre.
I stayed cleared there, barely breathing, afraid if I shifted
the box beside me, the whole hallucination would shatter, or
worse notice me. My phone vibrated as silent alarm telling
me it was almost eleven fifteen of them. I made
myself count to two hundred, then eased out, careful not
to let the door creak. The hallway was empty again,
save the faint lingering trace of perfume and toner. I
slunk to the elevator, bootsteps muffled by a carpet that
now felt too thick and yielding. At the doors, I
went to badge up, swiping my keeekout as always, the
reader beaped to cold blue. But when the log and
feedback displayed, it flashed two forty seven arms exs of
recorded My heart ram my chest. It was just after
eleven my watch match, So did my phone. The building's
main clocked by the lobby a brutally standard LCID. We'll
play read five eleven holm. As I passed through to
the dark hatem my skin prickled. Were all these clocks
broken out of phase? Or was I genuinely unstuck from
the normal timeline of an over lit office perk. When
I checked my phone in the cart that prickle became
an ache. There scattered through my calendar, as if planted
by another hand, were interest time stamped on days I
hadn't yet lived. I scrolled up text sent to CALLI
and Eliza, half finished memos, notice to myself that I
would swear I'd never written finish report too thirty pum
Yesterday meeting was scheduled seven forty six SAM TBD. Some
read like cryptic reminders. Don't check the clocks, don't check
the clocks, don't a trail into a single character. I
flipped my messages and stared at a draft and sent,
don't trust what do you unfinish? Then nothing? My hand
shook As I walked into the elevator for the last
time that night. My gaze cut upward to the mirrored wall.
My own face regarded me a little haggard, a little sweaty,
but for an instant, just as the door slid shot,
my reflection's eyes glimmered a colder brand than my own,
and the jaw seemed too wide, the lips compressed and unfamiliar,
as if rivolaid from a different image. I froze, I blinked.
Then the face was my own, again, wary and awake,
alive in a feeling light. That moment stuck with me.
The question settling under my ribs was level three. Whatever
haunt its present, already beginning to work itself inside me too.
I shut my eyes for one steadying breath, adrenaline still
singing under the surface. I tried to tell myself it
was glare exhaustion, another trick of too many days, cramped
between clents and caffene. But I couldn't shake the memory
of the other eyes, steady of them my own with
a patient, attentive indifference. They belonged to some one who
belonged here, or maybe I thought, with ugly curiosity, they
had once belonged to some one else altogether. Traffic sound
started as a faint thrum through the glass and true weight.
As I walked out, A couple Juna books flickered against
the over bright security lights over the empty lot, making
the world outside seem newly and faintly artificial. I checked
my phone again, rereading messages, searching for any trace of sanity.
Kelly had sent a mem Liza, blurry cap photo, and
a still alive but with three question marks. I tapped back,
fingers slow late night at the office, seaward stuff might
be losing it. I tigged an emergia barely recognized, let
the phone dangle before thinking better and deleting the whole
message before it sent. Once home, the steadiness of my
apartment lamplight, rumble quilt. The faint smell of detergent felt
both balm and accusation. The clock and the stove readissensible
eleven thirty eight them. I brewed adica, opened my laptop,
tried to watch half an episode of a detective show,
just for its familiar rhythm, but nothing took. Every few
minutes I checked the clock, each device agreeing, anchoring me
back to the certainty of normal chronology. Only when I
finally opened my work back to dump out the day's
art facts, I found the yellow legal pad open to
a page covered in cramped cross hatch numbers, many of
which I'd swear on Eliza's life. I hadn't written odd
times initials, I didn't recognize column headers without any sense.
Something in my handwritting some lines unmistakably my own room
three hundred eighteen. A check for second router the but
half the text elongated early, boldly, as if my hand
had forgotten itsself. Mid sentence, I traced my finger along
a few rows, then dropped the pad and past the
kitchen chest. Tight I must be missing sleep, I told
myself overworking, letting the weirdness of the job prey on me.
But the next morning brought no relief, just a bland,
persistent weight of unfinished work. Sunday felt deliberately misplaced, as
if a single day out of sync. I went for
a run, jogged past the strip mall's dodsched neighborhood dogs,
tried to recalibate back inside, settling with a munk of
burnt coffee. A surveyed the rest of my notes, searching
for logic. Each stick of time ever lowered clock an omally,
no clear pattern. Nothing tied them together, except that none
belonged to the day they insisted on occupying. It was
then a moment before noon that I received a text
from Sam. Their number appeared with shaking Curtie on the
lock screen. He saw the night shift writ no greeting,
just that. I hesitated, My thumbs hovered over the keyboard.
I started to type, erased, tried again. I saw people, Yeah,
who are they? A long pause, then no one knows.
I tried to track them to a good after I
started losing days. Don't hang around at night or don't
stay long direct reflexive dread. I had almost called back,
almost let the urge to connect override my hesitation, but
something in the bluntness of their warning stitch my mouth shut. Instead,
I scrolled through our old conversation, half of which now
seemed out of sequence. Earlier, they'd mentioned about sleep and
the loops and asked if I'd woken up as someone
else's cuvcle yet I'd replied, but the time stumps didn't
match my memory. Some replies seemed to proceed to questions,
some reference moments we hadn't discussed. A sense of vertigo
gathered in the pate of my stomach, and I shoved
the throne across the table, watching it spin against the
cheap pine grain. Still work demanded a return if level
three made me anxious. Level three was also a puzzle,
and I'd never left a puzzle unfinished. That afternoon, I
parked whither CCTV could catch me entering, let myself into
the back stair, and resolved to keep my visit short.
I told myself all I needed was a hard copy
of the network locks, another round of cable checks, and
then I'd walk uite. A gentle warning for Feldman and
Shell the headache as a lesson, learned that illusion ended.
The minute I passed reception. Noon sun threw warp rectangles
on the office floor. The third floor, per department policy
remained for escent light and windowless no sunlight. Ever, try
rually making it inside. The hum events were still there
and not quite white, noise that warbled as I walked
the hole. My shoes made a different kind of sand,
a hush, slippery than usual, as if the carpet fibers
had been combed against the gray, and catching the tread
of my souls. Near the elevators, I passed the glass
fishball conference room with a wall mounted TV cycling through
blue no signal screen. My reflection unremarkable, I told myself,
But I checked it twice. Drifted along with the glass
as if in the surface of an aquarium. No blowed figures.
This time my side clouded the surface. Before I moved on.
Back at the eight closet, I flipped open the badge
locked to print fresh access records. If the records were
to be believed, someone had keyed in at two forty
one and that morning an employee with the badge number
that according to Felman's master database, didn't belong to any
current tenant. The file for that badge was locked and accessible.
I made a copy of the entry on sticky note,
resolved to keep it with me. As I reset the
printers at each work station, the clock seemed to flecker
at the periphery of my vision, as if aware they'd
been caught in a lie. I watched one digital face
roll soddenly forward from three eighteen pen de cix nex
twelve of them in the time it took me to
dust a screen. My heart kept up is now familiar
to step awe in irritation. The stuttering disbelief of someone's
still trained to expect literal physical causes bad wiring malware
it must configure to Maine. I was halfway down the
Hahle Way when a woman in business casual slipped from
a sweet near the supply closet. I recognized her from
my first day parallegal or maybe assistance from the legal
firm who'd kept their heads down. Excuse me, she said,
almost colliding with me. Her tote bag was heavy enough
to sway behind. Do you need assistance with the network?
I tried the line neutral all business. She brushed past me.
Chintucklow and shook her head, just late for a meeting,
she muttered as she vanished behind the stairwell door. However,
I caught her pause almost imperceptibly at the level three sign,
her knuckles squeezing the strap until they widened. I listened
for the echo of her steps below, sharp and fast,
as if she was feeling some invisible pursuit. I'd begun
to note their smaller details were cycled. They were always
seemed specially dry and sweet. The bray Combs fridge never
seen to accumulate more trash, the untouched for its slowly
collecting dust in perfect and disturbed arrangements. I took a
photo tan stumped it. Twenty minutes later. When I returned,
the fridge was restocked, same foods, but the packaging different.
Yoga dated two days ahead, sowed as from brand's I
didn't recall seeing since college. I blink repeatedly, confused. Nothing
else in the kitchen had moved. Each moll encounter etched
itself into my memory, sharpening my focus. I moved through
the space more carefully, now touching surfaces as expecting the
world to buckle beneath my fingers. Later that afternoon, sound
texted again, don't let it get familiar. I asked what
they meant, half wanting, half dreading a response. The reply
came as I was kneeling under another desk, tracing a
cable routine. Will edyd their set timers change up what
ye do? Don't ever sit at the same desk twice.
I laughed at the superstition, but even skepticism weighed less
than the urge to obey. When I made my final
sweep for the day, I tried at the waistcap in sequence,
moving desk to desk at random, never lingering at one
work station for more than two or three minutes. It
felt silly, as if I was playing musical chairs with
invisible rolls. But around the eight stop, a strain sensation
settled over me, like dejauvu, but fergmented. Each bob felt
more and more like an echo of one. I just
left the furniture of a laughing in my memory so
subtly I wasn't sure if I had been there the
moment before or the moment after. In one cubicle, I
found the legal pad i'd been missing, open to a
page covered with mirrored writing, as if the numbers had
bled through from another sheet. My spine unlocked a ripple
of fear. After five p m, the floor's normal exodus began.
Quite doors closed, the vending machine shut its illuminated face,
and a faint shuffle of the janitorial crew began. Down
on to I stood in the stairwell and looked down.
On every flight, the sound of voices and keyboard clatter
filtered upward, always just around the bend, but never close
enough to resolve. Instead of going home, I sat in
the corridor near the elevator and listened recording device on
phone in hand. I waited, pressing myself against a wall
so the sensors above would think the four was empty.
For more than an hour, nothing happened except the slow
chairing of the building's mechanical heart ah TRAC pulsing, the
elevator dinging faintly at three minute intervals, sometimes at five,
never at the same moment. Twice I check id at
the intervals on my pad, but the times didn't match
any world time zone. Eventually, boredom in a slow mounting
dred got the better of me. I got up, checked
the wall for motion sensors, and walked just for a minute.
Looping back into the first row of cubicles, I gannced
into a couple of offices. Some were pristine, others as
if an invisible meeting had just concluded, had chairs askew
and coffee cups warm in the dust. That's when I
heard the telltale mechanical snap of the elevator at a
time when every badge log i chick should have shown
the building empty another elevator time. Just at the edge
of earing, the doors whined but didn't open. I leaned
close to the elevator panel. The display flashed three in
quick succession, then blanked to a single horizontal line. I
pushed the cold button. Nothing happened, not even the telte
hum of the left descending from above. After a moment,
the display flickered to one thirty arms, then back to
five seven pound, then blank. I pressed my phone to
record speaking low level three elevator panel display flickering floor
call registered. I had to check the wall clock is
LCD read six forty six perm I blinked. The fawn
screen said five to twenty eight. My wristwatch and old
analog said three fifty and in the mirrored chrome of
the elevator's edge. I again saw two things at once,
my face tight with concentration, and behind it for a blink,
and then gone a white set pair of brown eyes glasser,
and fluttered on my own, staring sideways as if counting
down enough. I decided was enough for one night. I
slipped down the stairle, hopping every second step on the
landing blow the motions and so lights fired late. I
was halfway across the shadowed carpet before the world came
abruptly back alive. The difference in air pressure, in light,
and sad jawred me into believing that the downstairs was
a safer country altogether. I collapsed into my car, doors locked,
and made my nose as best I could, writing by
the weak dum light somewhere between intention and execution. However,
the writing on my padgrew's luggish, my hand tracing out
more times, more notations that looped and skidded off the paper.
My exhaustion reached a threshold, a limit beyond which every
moment on level three seemed to have spilled into the
next time, losing its proper direction. When I shook myself
awake in my driver two hours later, engine running when
should fog to my back was on the passenger seat,
legal pad open to a new page with the words
do not trust the logs written three times and heavy
unfamiliar script. I went inside, locked the door behind me,
and washed my hands. The water ran cold for a
long minute. I checked every clock in the house, made
sure each one lined up with the national time up
on my phone, all displaying midnight in the dot. Satisfied,
I dragged myself into bed and slept hard. But my
dreams grew dense and filmic, full of blank offices and
mirrored faces. People shuffled and endless, identical routines, the same
walk from cubicle to cubicle, the same lifting of a coffee,
morgued to lips, always leaving, always returning to carousel of
the same moment, repeated behind glass. In the moment before waking,
another face hovered behind the surface of my own vision,
memorying in the cadence of office speak, not English or
any language I could name, but pat with the cadence
of short cuts, all the size and shrugs of underpaid labor.
Daylight when it called through my curtains the next morning
felt ache heavy. I chewed Lecompto's crawling through my text
and email, hunting for some anchoring logic. A Pateck alert
had come Filman's office prompt and bland with it an
insign note, thanks for your diligent no further action needed
for now, But my own sense of inertia didn't allow
for walking away, not without some explanation, some proof that
the floor was more than just a series of locks
and overactive imagination. I made another col to Feldman, this
time as VOSTSMAO came up instantly a series of digital beaps,
strong too close together, punctuated at the end with a
single breath, like a recording cut off mid sentence. I
left a message anyway, this is Dylan. I've finished my checks.
I've turned up some oddities with your network logs, timing
and security footage. I'd like to review what you know,
specifically the access locks for late night events. Please call me.
After five, no response came, since dare my books slowly
filled with automated reminders, report due level three four thirteen PUM.
The submit added lock level three south two seven PUM,
each tagged for a time that had already passed. Impossible
to reconcile with the current iro. My online calendar required
more strange entries. Conference call ten forty eight, pom A
ten if possible. I cross checked with my paper notes
there at the same times, drifted in the margins, nested
in handwriting that almost but not quite looked like mine.
I called Kelli to vent. Tell me again, she said,
voice half laughing, half sharpened by my tone. You want
to apply for the haunted dark house at the Smithsonian.
The sand's just about weird enough. I tried to lay
it out for her. At the badge locks, the computers
that seemed to remember different walls of time, the people
I'd see moving at night, the emails that had vanished,
the legal pad now two pages more than it should
have been. Maybe it's just mold, she offered, more nervous
than I ever heard her. Maybe, I said, swallowing the
urged Aasco to stay on the line forever. But if
you don't hear from me by to morrow, come poke
around level three. The words hung any air, like a
dare or perhaps a ward. I didn't return to the
building that night. I sat at the desk, drawing sketches
of the layout mark in each desk where a time
sticker had been found, drawing arrows to match where the
clocks had run backward or flashed through. IROs In a minute,
the faint map began to form clockwise for one corridor
and to clockwise for the row lawn the outer wall.
It clicked, then stuttered away, a coherence just out of reach,
like recalling a dream. Two days after waking, when midnights struck,
I noticed for the first time that I had been
rubbing at the inside of my left wrist absently, as
of some persistent issh that hadn't quite emerged. The skin
was smooth and blank, but oppressed harder, back, tense, waiting
for some new mark to appear or resolve. Nothing did,
but in the hustaff followed a deep beneath saddled in
my chest. All I wanted was out. Yet the more
Level three knotted itself into my thoughts, the more I
needed to find the hidden for it to seek who
or what moved the clocks, who filled the fridge, who
recited the skrets of office life? After ires, without witness
or reward, I resolved to go back one more time,
determined to find at last which part of the pattern
had begun to include me. There's a real difference in
the way you wake up after a panic, as opposed
to ordinary gradual light filtering. In that morning, my alarm
barely sounded a single chrip, far too quiet, before I
was bowled upright mount dry sheets tangled around my ankles.
Outside my window, day light was strangled to a gray blare,
nowhere near as bright as it should have been. I
snatched up my phone, still expecting irrational correction, and saw
the time seven forty two m or so it claimed.
The wall clock across the room, battery part recently checked
read six'. Nine my laptop and touched since the last
update glowed at nine twenty. One, INSTINCTIVELY i checked my wrist,
toworts the only thing that hadn't been touched by technologies
in visible. Hand it reads seven fifty. Eight at, LEAST
i told myself it was a steady, point something to
tie me to the. Now my head, ached my mouth
still tasted faintly of officer at. Metallic every muscle was wound,
up as If i'd spent the night running rather than.
DREAMING i tried to reconstruct the Prior, knight the, elevators
the glass reflection the faces that didn't quite. Belong each
memory was blundered, slightly as if watched through the wrong
end of a. TELESCOPE i found my legal pad tossed
in a, couch a sticky note with that enigmatic badge
number folded. Inside the note was crumble smudged with what
looked like graphic dust on the. Margin in a rushed,
HAND i, scrawled do not trust the logs record. Everything
Whether i'd written it or not was an open. Question
too restless to, SIT i brew coffee strong enough to
wake the, dead then dumped after three. SIPs unsettled by the,
SMELL i moved round the, apartment checking the arms of,
chairs door, edges searching for signs that last night had
followed me some slight shift in the normal order at my.
LAPTOP i plugged in my phone and backed up all
my files while my hand ran on. Autopilot last night's
voice memos, physistatic nothing, clear just muffled white noise punctuated
by my own. Breeding the audio from my phone sounded
as though it had been played under, water words too
melted to. PASS a vibration broke the. Silence, kelly with
her usual timing, texted made it through your haunted shift
or did the echo men take? YOU i stayed up,
blankly thumbs frozen over the. Screen in a moment of
pure chorked, AMUSEMENT i REALIZED i had no answer that
felt true for safe to. Send bracing, MYSELF i Called felman's,
office half expecting another brush off or the endlessness of a.
MACHINE a Chip attemp put me on, hold then Played
tinney music until he finally came on voice. TUT i
pressed him again about badge logs and night. Access he,
demurred with fresh. Energy we're running a. Backport it probably
old convegued. Surfacing nothing for you to worry. About just
finish your. Report don't stay, Late, Dylan, really let's keep this.
Smooth he sounded, tired not of, it or may be
that was wishful. Thinking hunger pushed me out into the.
WORLD a diner around the, block eggs and burn hatch.
BROWNS i stared across the laminate, table nervously fingering that sticky.
Note my eyes drifted to a small glass clock in
the counter behind the, server its hands taking backward then forward.
AGAIN i. Blinked its stopped pointed square at four o'clock
then continued as. Usual back at, HOME i opened my cloud's,
storage desperate for. Structure in my private note, folder a
loan file had appeared to leave ALFREE behaviorksip loss modified
at six thirteen Ams brazil, time according to its. METADATA
i tried not to think about how it had gotten.
There my laptop grown at the opening command inside a
chaos of FILES i should not have, existed decades OLD
pdaf for adaptive, forms screenshots of badge transactions from networks
that use a completely different. STANDARD i paid slowly through
reductions and blocks of text labeled, private do not, duplicate scattered.
Comments subjective time phased out unmeasurable to sub two hundred
ten lost, time repeated work depersonalization aims were, redacted replaced
by strings of. INITIALS a spreadsheet so broad it needed
to be scrolled for. Minutes mapped incident reports level three
icons for every company and every. TENANT heug rotated through
the floor across a half. Decade all the incident's systemic
memory loss, vanished work, sessions complaints of a flickering of
voices or looping. Tasks the earliest entries went back six.
Years the most recent was last. Week one folder held detailed,
logs presumably from sensors hidden about the, ceiling tiles or.
Furniture ambient noise, measurements keyboard activity by the millisecond snippets
of office. Banter it read like someone's thesis project until
a line near the. End primary aim, developed non, disruptive
ambient nudges for behavioral, cohesion five time in disruption and
environmental drift below, it escalation of, protocol psychological, effect, acceptable operational, risk,
flagged do not investigate, sensors do not notify participants suddenly
buried in subholders a block of dark. Files participant notes
all redacted by, name with fragmentary. INJURIES i can't say
if this is. REAL i keep waking up and finding
new notes in my own. Hands everyone, laughs dismisses. It
the frige is always. Full bad things happen WHEN i.
Work after ires another chilling in its, brevity lost, week
no memory from badge In badge, OUT i set up a,
backup copying everything to a thumb, drive but as system
prompt flash of fellon use cannot. Copy the foto blinked
and entire blots of day to vanish before my. EYES
i was able to save a, single grainy, screenshot a
plain report header Ambient Behavioral Protocol level three incident phase.
Ongoing that was all my hands. Shook AS i let
the system, FINISH i stared at my reflection in the laptop,
screen half expecting the other face to re. Emerge at,
noon another text From, sam did you find it? TOO
a chill grounded. Me rather than, REPLY i launched an
end to end in cryptoical and hope the connection would.
Hold sam's voice when they picked. Up was horse too?
Quiet you, know don't? You the breath hissed across the
line about the, experiment the, sensors the time shifts, RELUCTANTLY i,
CONFIRMED i saw the. FILES i pressed. On does it ever?
Stop one's you? Notice do you feel normal? Again sam
drew a shaky. BREATH i can't tell any. More SOMETIMES
i THINK i remember my old. Life SOMETIMES i wake
up and Think i've never left that FOR i even
dreamed The Badge, flocks their, honesty raw and brutal peer
something in. ME i have nightmares, now office dreams looping.
FOREVER i try to quit, jobs but all the new
ones feel the, same Like i'm just running the same script,
again only with different people's. Faces we spoke in fits and.
Starts small truths followed beneath the surface of dread, time,
slips looping, tasks the sense that life was subtly shifting
into grooves that didn't belong to. Us they, confessed almost
as an afterthought to a new, habit rubbing the inside
of their left. Forist convinced there was something beneath the,
SKIN i clenched my own wrists. Reflexively it hall's. Tender
it was time for. CLARITY i resolved to go back a,
plan not just another goest pass at the. Problem meet
me this, EVENING i, asked after, sunset let's try to
anchor each other at. Least sam hesitated a long, pause
then a conditional If i'm still. Me after that, CALL
i loaded my old shackhack, tools JUMP a, cables a
set OF iur motion, cams battery, banks anything to build
a perimeter against the mreality of their. Space among my
tech was a rist, recorder a cheap plastic band set
to beap every fifteen. Minutes the idea came from an
online thread above over sleeping. Episodes forced herself to look
at a clock to declare the. Present as darkness, GREW
i drove with the windows, opened the radio. Low every cross,
walk every ordinary traffic event felt too synchronous for a fleeting.
Moment in line at, STOPLIGHT i watched the car heead blankets,
left blink or, twice then suddenly switched to the, right
as if second guessing an invisible. Instruction no one else.
Noticed my heart. Hammered even. So level, three WHEN i,
arrived was a study and anti. Spectacle the lobby lights
offered a flimsy barrier against the, dark no, security None
ever after six S feldman had, said my badge still
beat at the back, door which unlatched with that same flat.
THUNK i walked through ear that felt colder than physics,
allowed every, sound damp and bass. Memory my hand shook
as had passed the legal pad like a, talisman ignoring
the elevator in favor of. Stairs at the there, Landing sam,
waited wearing a patchwork of defense seaberds plugged in but,
silent a Battered thermoma clutch so tightly the knuckles showed.
WHITE i offered them a quick nervous nod in and.
OUT i, said we stick, together lights on, Always we
don't try to fix, anything just. Document they, Nodded no
sitting at, desks no drinks from the, fridge keep. Moving
the caution was both comfort and. Warning we entered through
the south wing with the power tools and battery packs in.
Hand we set up by our cameras in a conference
room and the main. Corridor the motion detect to crackle
the soft, pane then a rolling series of green, lights
all set to. RECORD i planted a keylogger on the
keyboard nearest the silver, room careful to document time and
location for each. Device sund handled the logs, methodically badge
ready at nine seventeen them our first. Checkpoint the clocks
disagreed as, usual but AS i glanced from one digital
face to the, next each flask the, same straining just
for an instant sink. Airror my heart twisted in my.
Chest we kept, moving nerves, tight logging every. Anomaly sometimes
the air deepened as if a thousand small machines had
woken up in the. Ducts overhead scent of plastic stronger than,
before lace with faint. Bleach at ten twenty, eight my
wrist recorder. Beaped sam. JUMPED i keep expecting something cancer
when you set that. Off they, WHISPERED i didn't tell
them about my own fear of every time the van
BEAT a half pictured of face bending toward mine as too,
flat jawty. Wide at eleven, twelve motion registered on the
east iur rig our feet showed shadow of, movement multiple
shapes flickering in, unison drifting down the corridor in a staggered.
Flock we ducked into the copy, room held our breath
watch the display on the. Monitor eight or nine human
figures moved, information each stirring a, cheer sitting rising in
abnormally symmetrical. Patterns their clothing was, nondescript off as casual
waterally generic faces were smudged by the, exposure never quite
coming into. Focus the office air, shifted as though something
had to merge between the walls from further down the
screen in conference be suddenly. SPATSTATIC a voice flat as
the line of a graph issued from the ceiling. Piece
synchronization protocol repeat instructions remain at terminal's work for repetition
SEQUENCE sam froze. TREMBLING i reached for their. Elbow my
own bread. Yellow another series of commands echoed a check
repository bresette, clocks begin new, shift confirm. Alignment each instruction
felt neither urgent nor, benign just necessary part of a larger.
Regime we peered out the door on the floor a
slow motion. Ballet each figure opened a folder clack, clack
a fractional delay from the, others as if living on
some outer earthic. Lack one figure taller than the, rest
genderless and, silhouette, froze then stared straight at my, camera
as if aware of its eye with, HORROR i saw a,
face pixel ay features mirroring horizontally UNTIL i caught the
unmistakable impression of, three maybe four different, eyes jaws layered
over one, another flickering in and out of. Existence my
mouth went. Dry sam uttered a small fractured, sam covering
their mouth with a shaking. Hand at, midnight the elevator.
Chimed the figures in perfect, unity began to, stand move
into different, desks trading, chairs starred, again the pa and
toned synchronization complete next phase. Observation please record feedback for.
Analysis the phrase senage allt through me with a, sudden irrational.
RESOLVE a grobbed sum by the. Sleeve let's go serve
a room, now they followed. Wordlessly we ducked into the
cramped humming cube with the server's wind and rattled behind mesh.
GRATES i pulled the breaker in unmarked, rereads which then
the entire floor plunged into sepulchal, silence only emergency lights
flickering weakly to life down the main. Hole the air,
changed a sense of, pressure as if something massive was
exhaling through the. Floorboards out in the, hallway the darkened
figures frozen, place some, midstep some at a. Desk in
the half, light the form seemed to bleed into the,
furniture outlined. SOFTENING a static burst rushed through the vent.
System then a, flat artificial female, voice different than Before,
calder almost, curious filled the. Dark unauthorized interruption, DETECTED, sta
please identify your assigned. AREAS a few heads in the
crowd turned in mechanical, unison faces still in, distinct eyes too.
Large then all at, once several began to walk straight
toward the surf. Room the, dillan we need to, Go
sam whispered so. Quietly their voice barely, registered BUT i
was rooted to. Transfixed the figures pressed against the, glass hands,
played their mouths, OPENED a not to, speak but in
a SILENT i as if gasping for air or remembering
a word did lost years. BEFORE i snapped out of
it as sound tured my. Arm, together we made for
the emergency, stairwell heart pounding behind. Us the crowd matched
our pace off for folds that somehow echoed louder than
shoes on carpet showed halfway down the hall at the
pia blode, again the voice now modulating in and, out
layer in on. Itself are you assigned to level? Three
please confirm, engagement join the, cycle participate fully repeat task.
SEQUENCE i glanced at somemis wide swept bound in their.
BROW i. Hissed we, sprinted desperate for the. STAIRS a moment,
later someone of something caught the metal handle behind. Us
the shriek of flexing steel rhinout as the fire door,
bulged as if a hundred hands pressed against the other.
Side without, Coordination sam AND i held ourselves against the stairwell.
Exit the door gave, way and we hurled down the,
stairs lips my LUNs, burned my hands stung from catching the.
Reil we barely paused at the, landing taking the stairs
two at a, time pursued by the echoing pound of organized,
footsteps always just a flight, up never quite catching, us
but gaining with every. Turn at the ground, level we
spilled into the, lobby faces, slick were, sweat gasping under
the relentless. Fluorescence the outer doors resisted our initial, push
magnet locks holding behind. Us the step slowed the glass
water the landing reflected our flight behind our wild. Faces
rows of blank gray features. Assembled. WATCHING i clawed from my,
badge nearly sobbing with relief When niggsit, beaped the doors flying.
Open cold light air flooded my, lawns some grid my,
arm not letting go until we stood a dozen feet
from the entry well into the empty. Lot we watched
as the figures inside the lobby, reassembled no longer, running
just resuming their quiet habitual. Moves they paced the, gas
one pausing to check a watchless, wrist the other smothing
and invisible. Tie The pierre cooat now. Faint synchronization, achieved
cycle completes level. Three quiet. Mode silence, returned broken only
by our ragged breeding in the parking. Lot we clung
to the last shreds of. DISBELIEF i fumbled with my.
Phone the time too late for our escape read three,
three and even though just minutes had, Passed sand's phone
was dead at their digital watch blinked all's. Errors we
made our way to my car in near complete, silence
exchanging no, words only glances loaded with questions neither of
us could. Answer behind, us the building, loomed windows aglow on,
three each digital clock display flickering with the, time all its,
own none correct or refusing to acknowledge the world. Outside
back in my, apartment the reality pressed its thumpering across
every predictable. Moment the legal pad and touch on the
kitchen table now bore a single looping, numbers golled and.
Familiar in ten, thirteen my, phone when turned, on ran
through a series of time, stamps covering three years worth
of dates and, seconds, notifications cycling through Events i'd never
attended or. CREATED i tried to Call, feldman but every
attempt dropped before a single. Wing his number was. Unlisted,
then AS i, watched simply vanished from my. CONTACTS i
looked Up sam's name on Linked, in just to reassure
myself this hadn't all been a fever. Dream their profile
now returned. Error us were not found my own, resume
hastily uploaded a year, ago no longer referenced The level
three contract with as lines had, been now yawning gaps
in my employment. History emails to the clients who referred
me To feldman bounced, back were recipient blocked or not.
Enabled cold and, Mechanical my, inbox once sordid and, predictable
now grew invasive, reminders automated, entries invitations with date set
in twenty, sixteen twenty twenty, five and twenty forty, one
all tied to recurring meetings On level, three all impossibly.
Overlapping the worst of it was the, echo not in the,
building but behind my own. Eyes every so, often WHEN
i stretched or reach for, something my hand would, hesitate trembling,
faintly as if double checking its own. EXISTENCE i caught
myself absently rubbing my leftists over and, over finger, tip
searching for something buried under the. SKIN a week, passed
at LEAST i imagined it was a, week trusting the
calendar on my refrigerator more than my. Watch in that,
time everyday thing slipped. Sideways SOMETIMES i found myself already
in a room BEFORE i could recall opening the. Door
ONCE i set out to buy, groceries only to REALIZE
i was already backing my car into my own, druveway
bags full, receipt reading a date three days. Earlier the,
cold plastic scent Of level three seemed to linger in
my clothes in the air of my. Apartment sleep became
unreliable when it. Came it, arrived thick with familiar, leaps
offices endlessly, resetting, computers flashing the same in correct, times
faces vanishing in, mirrors only to reapply themselves with slight,
alterations never quite my, own never quite someone. Else's OCCASIONALLY
i considered driving, back determined to check if everything on
the floor had simply resumed its torpor without. Me the
resolves sloughed away as quickly as it, formed were replaced
by a dread that felt less like fear and more
likely absence of, RESISTANCE a, gentle constant nudge to remain
in my narrow, routine just another loop within the shell
of everyday. LIFE i tried to Reach kelly And, eliza
desperate for some proof that the world outside continued and
phased my text both remark delivered yet rarely. Answered those
that were came without time, stamps lagging iris behind real,
time or sailing into the future reading saw this. Late
are you? Okay thought you were? Traveling or weird? Glitch
but all's good. Here don't work too, HARD i wrote,
back don't let work change, you and didn't expect to.
Reply the paycheck From felton's office cleared blunt and, unmarked
as before a direct to, pulsate with the comment project,
complete no further contact. REQUIRE i tried to tax myself
with an ordinary its job, next but couldn't recall how
one gets started fresh my own resume WHEN i, checked
it was missing every file to do with level, three
the wayburn paper leaves a lighter shadow of itself after the.
Fire on the worse, DAYS i felt brief pulses of lost,
time a flutter in my, chests a cold reciting just
behind my. Eyes ONCE i found myself at my kitchen,
sink hands, dripping staring into the, faucet shadows if waiting
for a routine or, voice or a shimmer of purpose
to instruct the next. TASK i had taken, notes coppet,
files saved, evidence yet all of it felt as, provisional
as a dream that grows paler upon. Waking when the package,
arrived it was as unremarkable as a piece of lost,
mail no stickers or return, address just a plane padded,
envelope half torn at the, edge inside a black plastic
badge fall identical to the One i'd used on level
through still keyringe with the number etched into its, side
one that matched the times and stickers i'd. Locked the
tag was, cold unnaturally so as if, refrigerated my nerves caught.
FIRE i, hesitated considering simply throwing it. Out but curiosity
may be ritual one. OUT i scanned the fob with
every badge reader in my, building each once bat out
a recognition, signal admitting me into cleaning, closets mail, rooms
even locked electrical. Rooms WHEN i slept, inside the digital
clocks in each room blinked as if on, cue shoffling
for split second sequences of, times most not matching anything.
LOGICAL i always bring the sense of another order running
beneath the natural. One in my bathroom, MIRROR i inspected my.
Wrist only then DID i notice what hadn't been there,
BEFORE a, faint grayish, number no bigger than a, penny
just under the surface four, thirteen the same time as
a first sticker the first, AIRNCLOCK i pressed out. It nothing,
happened but show ran from my fingers up my. Arm
ever so, often IF i stared long, ENOUGH i could
almost hear the whir of a copper left running just
out of, sight or the white noise aforest, air or
the flutter of unseen hands repeating the same work again and.
Again there was a quality to the, silence, now a
pressure under the, skin as IF i waited for the
next suckle to click. Forward in that closing, moment standing
barefoot in the hush of my, apartment badge in, HAND
i exhaled and let myself be present in the. STRANGENESS
i traced the number at my, wrist felt the, stillness and,
listened quiet and alert to a whirl permanently subtly out of.
SYNC i traced the number at my, wrist felt the,
stillness and, listened quiet and alert to a, weirll permanently
subtly out of. Sync in the days after the, package
time itself seemed, thin. Skained morning routines which should have
been muscle memory became. Patchwork tupis already encapped keys in
my hand before my coat text threads. OPENED i hadn't
meant to. Send i'd catch myself in the middle of a.
Task kaffret an e mail cattle already boiling new recollection
of beginning brief. Flickers nothing, dramatic but the aggregate felt like,
erosion steady dulling at the boundary between intention and. Action in,
public strangers stud at me with us light sideways glance
were served for the almost. Familiar my barrister at the
corner cafey greeted me with my, name but, later collecting my,
order she, paused, wait aren't you know, sorry as if
freeding a promptophamisplay stage key the world's. Choreography slipped lines
repeated out of. Order, once in a lobby of my,
building my neighbor held open the. DOORS i entered a,
smile freezing for a second too, long they resetting as
he murmured a greeting that sounded like a. QUESTION a
growing suspicionag beneath the. Surface level three hadn't only marked,
me but subtenly written itself into the fabric of my.
Days my devices conspired a reminders for APPOINTMENTS i had never,
Made recurring calendar events labeled only with strings of, numbers four, thirteen, two,
seven ten forty. Eight ticking like a course through my.
NOTIFICATIONS i began testing reality with little, rituals placing coins on,
clocks photographing the, arrangement checking an eye or later to
see if time moody objects themselves had. Shifted sometimes the photos,
disagreed sometimes they, matched which was almost. Worse sleep offers cat.
Sanctuary i'd awake before, dawn the city and its sounds
coded in a unlanguished, anxiety convinced something urgent was left and.
Done when dreams, arrived they were not, violent but, procedural
columns of figures at desks and hovering over, keys faces
composed of flickering slices of PEOPLE i might have glimpsed
once or never at, all again and. Again in the
logic of the, dream someone was always about to badge
in or badge, out but could not caught halfway lost between,
INTERLOCKS i stopped hearing from. Sam messages failed in their
ordinary ways at first scent but amount than the unhelpful
ECHO i got to. Correct this number is no longer in,
service no, bounce no, finality just, gone like pulling on
a thread and finding it, endless spoiling into some deeper,
elsewhere more. Worrying now and Then i'd see their name
suggested in my own Email, ottoville as If i'd been
writing to them for, months though the out box was,
empty saved for strings of failed. Attempts the temptation to
seek certainty the full truth never. Subsided at, Intervals i'd
find myself halfway, through rehearsing What i'd say To, feldman
arguing the, pattern demanding ACKNOWLEDGMENT i never. Called some instincts
stronger than pride warned. Me Whatever feldman, you a conversation
would not fix or, clarify might only rewrite more of
me into level three. SCRIPT i noticed too that my
own memory Of feldman's face groups, killed like a partially overritten,
footograph general shape of voice, quality no. Edges the WORK
i took afterward felt oddly. Foreclosed interview panels forgot my
name between, questions, taskless sort of populated and, erased, resumes
emptied and. Refelled friends in my circle remembered only. Vaguely
eye DID i ty stuff for that legal building off,
commerce but the rest had. Faded even my Sister, kelly
one she did, call seemed. Distracted the weirdest. Thing she
told me, ONCE i could have sworn you used to
work for that office With. Sam what happened to that?
Guy my answer slip. SIDEWAYS i think they, Moved but
INSIDE i rehearsed a, VARIANT i think they were. Moved
each concrete attempt to reclaim the ordinary fowl. Hollow food
bought expired too. Quickly shoes wore faster on the left.
Side Always once in a crowded, lift a quarter a
dozen eyes reflected a half a beat behind, movement as
if a series are delayed. FRAMES a man behind me
gripped his fawn thumbed to badge, fob tracing a number
with unconscious, precision ten forty. Seven giving up the, EFFORT
i let my days. DRIFT i avoided all badge operated,
doors left key fobs out of, reach even covered to
clocks in my apartment with index. Cards even, so the
sense of being watched horror worse, nudged never. WANED i
grew afraid of. Mirrors sometimes my own face would, hesitate
blinking a fraction. Late the JAW atensi in an unfamiliar
configuration still clues trickled leaks in the. FABRIC a digital
receipt from a supply stoor i'd never, enter turned samped
exactly two seven per, mon a date two months earlier
than to. Day an e mail from, myself addressed to,
myself unreadable gibberish with a familiar sign. Off WHEN i
opened my desk, DRAWER i found my legal, pad the
ONE i locked, AWAY a new page. Crolled next phase
engagement required in my small acts of, paranoia a new
passcode for, EVERYTHING a running checklist Of nane's calibration for all.
CLOCKS i realized defense was its own. Performance most telling
was how colleagues and acquaintances seemed to forget interactions almost.
Instantly conversations looped tell me about the office, job begin
at what happened up, there each time from a different,
mouth each rendered. Unfamiliar, eventually one, evening when the air
in my apartment had the plastic tang of level, THREE
i surrendered to, curiosity or maybe. INEVITABILITY i took out
the badge fob from the, drawer cold as ever, like
glinting softly across its euch, NUMBERS i pressed it against
my own apartments, lock a pointless, gesture but habitual ritual is.
Sick the lock clicked inside my clocks blinked out of,
sink the oven flash, nonsense the wall clock spun, jitter
then settled on four. THIRTEEN i stood for a moment
for its, tightening a round possibility that a palpable wave
of exhaustion broke over. ME a notification, SOUNDED a voice
memorio playing for my, phone my own, voice, tense speaking
as if from a great. Distance keep, sequence complete, entry
do not trust, memory repeat, static then asigh on the
screen at, times stamp for an aire that didn't. Exist
two sixty one, Am march thirty. FIVE i clicked it,
closed hand, shaking then heard the click of the mill
slot downstairs and the welcome mat and never padded, envelope no,
note just a new, badge, pristine same number the, cycle it,
seemed would never want for. Props one last, EFFORT i
copied my, files sent them to an old, friend SOMEONE
i trusted to be outside the. Loop subject line, blank
attachment tadled all immediately bounce back recipient does not. Exist
oh no. WHIM i visited the, building circled it by
car from the. Curb nothing was, remarkable lights on off,
floors janitorial staff visible through the, windows, except of, course
for three there the glass offered only a sellow glow
outlines frozen behind frosted, panes figure siloutated against undulating, screens all,
still all waiting in my. Pocket the badge four poles were.
COLD a child's, voice nowhere to be, found echoed from the.
STOWALLS i, pass time to check, in time to check, out,
unplaceable but the caton's. PRECISE i kept, walking not daring
to look up. Again the city's business, continued but the
rhythm felt. Misalign one soft bee behind traffic light cycled
out of, order and even the crossing signs blinked with minor,
hesitations as if expecting an advantage or correction that never.
Arrived that, night sorting re seats on my, DESK i
found one item mize forcing protocol. Complete there was no business.
Name another for ires rendered. Zero they dissolved AS i
tried to photograph the meach digital image, bland each memory
slipping half. Away towards, dawn the legal pad Where i'd
begun everything was open. AGAIN a new set of, numbers
a neatly ballpoint five, eleven, ten, thirteen four, thirteen and
on my, wrists as if coaxed there by repetition or,
compliance a second faint to two appearing next to the first, two,
seven a sudden, shivering understanding. Dawn none of this was.
Noise each element was a, reminder bearings in a perpetual feedback,
loop a network protocol more persistent than any one's personal.
HISTORY i realized then that whatever systems had been seated
Into level three had spread, outward, unnoticed, unremarked like mold
behind painted, walls wandering my apartment in a restless. CIRCLE
i toyed with the, badge holding it up to every,
screen every, lock assisting the urge to use it to
see what next would change IF i completed some silent.
Sequence the urge persisted alonging almost to belong or to,
participate to have the cycle. Advance and yet somewhere at
the back of my mind a memory not quite, mine
lean as Warning sam's desperate, voice the layered chorus in the,
air all the faces lightly out of. PHASE i left
the badge on the window, sill as if some light
could ward off the. Influence but even in that there
was uncertainty whether that decision had already been me or
was looping in its own unchangeable. Way in those last quiet,
Hours as the city paled into, MORNING i held my
wrist to the window, glass felt the faint pulse of
numbers beneath the, skin and wondered if that subtle and
a toow chilling patient would let me, go or If
i'd simply keep repeating tasks as, assigned, forever part of
a cycle no one else could. See with a, BREATH
i decided to leave the apartment for a, walk locking
the door behind, me glancing once more at the. Badge
the air outside felt, thin colder Than february, warranted for
it did with just the faintest send of burning. Plastic
AS i stepped, out all the world's clocks on phones
caused traffic crossings appeared to hestate in their, cycles as
if the system itself had missed a. BEAT i kept,
walking daring not to look. Back. Inside the badge remained
its own small, anchor radiating just barely against the morning's.
Hush whatever work began up, THERE i wonder how far it,
spread and If i'll ever know when my own time runs,
out and that is the. End thank you for, listening
AND i will see you in the next. One