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

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Let's get into it. I stepped onto level three as

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the sun bled out over the nearly empty parking lot,

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casting everything through the foy's tinted windows in a dying

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orange chaze. The overhead fulorescent set to motion sensors flickered

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to full brightness as soon as I passed the stabilistatic

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bus in the air that pressed against my teeth. Cubicle

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stretched ahead Ghoes Town quiet. Only the soft, cold homophorestare

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and the faint, cloying scent a plastic like a freshly

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un rapped child's toy, made any claim to life. The

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carpet had a faint depression where countless rolling chair casters

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had created erratic pass od trails between workstations, and even

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with heavy use. I paused at the door just long

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enough to adjust my blueto thear piece. Immediately, the coal

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buzzed in a muted number I had recognized as belonging

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to mister Feldman from his earl at text, though his

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actual voice startled by how frayed it sounded just log

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and assass. He whispered barely above the threshold of a

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mic as if he were afraid of being overheard to

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read a drywall. Don't talk to any one too much, Okay,

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don't stay late on three. Do your thing, but don't

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drag it out, please. Some of the vendors are anxious.

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I tried for a chuckle, but all I managed was

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a hum a nod. Toned to open a new contract,

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but property managers were a jumpy breed at the best

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of times. I replied that I'd keep it fast and

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an obtrusive, and slid the phone into my pocket fingers

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called on the rubber's case. Inside. Every monitor step blankly

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back and touched. Yet as I walked the row with

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my checkis to the stand of welcome inspect cables, run pings,

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check for mal where I found my focus Now, Each computer,

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as I worked then to check IP assignments, displayed a

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digital clock that was wrong, not just off by an

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hour here or there. Each machine declared a different time

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four thirty nine, ten forty eight pum two sivenbum seven

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forty six am, and so on, not even in the

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same ballpark, some ticking slowly, some racing forward, none in

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any harmony with each other or with the time on

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my own phone. I made a mental note to check

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for a failed and tepie silver, but the scope was

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strange even for a bad domain set up my six

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work station blue Dell left stick appealed, came alive from

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sleep with no input. The fan word for a moment.

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A voice stuttered from its tinny speakers, so fast and

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quiet it took me a heartbeat to register his speech.

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A log out return returning the logins green shimmered. The

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sound he keeped as if someone had spoken next to

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the microphone, threw a mouthful of water. Then just as

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quickly everything blanked and the monitor's orange stand by light returned.

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I checked over my shoulder, Serdin, someone had slipped inside

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behind me anty hole stretching to a supply room, a

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shadow broken only by a mort bucket ghost in the machine. Sure,

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in all my years patching routers and tracing erranpings from

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meatspasce clients, something about this was out of joint. I

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thumbed out quick stupid text to my friend Kelly, level three.

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All the clocks are possessed. Maybe I'm in a time

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slip zone. Her reply was nearly instant, as if she'd

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been waiting. Don't get stuck in nineteen eighty seven. Lol,

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if you see your own ghosts wave high for me.

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When I looked up from the phone, my heart snagged.

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In the reflection of the glass conference room door, A

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shape moved, a blurred figure, not just my outline, lingering

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just behind my left side. As I craning to see

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over my shoulder. I whipped around since his spiking, but

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the hallway was empty, keupical chairs idle, and the hush

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my pulse statter, and I just laughed, assolving before it formed.

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I wrote it off as lingering screen glare and kept moving,

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though I checked the shadows more closely on the next

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pass down the carpet, and kept my phone's camera ready

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in my palm. A minute later, I found myself crossing back,

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uncertain what I had already loved, feeling as if I

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were orbiting my own footsteps. The humming between the lights

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seamed sharper. It took real effort to shake the sense

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that some one somewhere watched every step. One week before

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all that I was just another overcaffeinated freelancer, juggled in

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tiny contracts and bigger day dreams. My days tumbled together

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in blank comfort microweap Berritoi's. I was listening to free

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podcast's hosts review gadgets no one really needed, and the

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endless customer calls that came with running my own modest

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I tea troubleshooting gig if you needed a Wi Fi

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repeater fixed a coffee shop's p us writers cleaned of

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malware were a start of printer exercised. I wasier person.

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I kept my apartments, bought in second hand couch, espresso maker,

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backlog of library books, anything to keep renlow in my

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even to peaceful. I've grown to savor a peculiar kind

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of sology that came with these local jobs. A rhythm

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stitch from short rides on my batter bicycle, the tap

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and rattle of tools in my backpack, and after Irish

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office here. If a job ever got too interesting, it

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was usually an exploding tona cartridge kind of way, not

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the corporate exiles variety that was half the appeal. Fixed

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quietly yet pay move on. But beneath that I couldn't

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deny a little itch for something different, something that didn't

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leave my mind blank five minutes after shutting the car door.

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Some nights, after too much you tube and not enough

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real human conversation. I'd joke with my little sister Eliza

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that I'd give anything for a gig where something's actually happening,

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like a secret calf on the third floor. She'd laugh

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and send me means about haunted workspaces. She'd say, better

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buy some sage and holy water before you set up

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a new print. A hup, Ye, no level threes of

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just boud news, same everywhere. So when mister Felman called

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that Wednesday and no number mid morning, I was in

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between contracts, poking at a dead netgear ratter and listening

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to a podcast debate about where the dart mode says battery.

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His tone was the first thing that told me this

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cold eat my usual. He didn't open a small talk,

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just dived in. I need an experienced network tech for

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a level free job, he said, it's persistently and STAB

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already paid off two other firms and neither solved at

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network clock issues where user complaints a bunch of systems

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buzzing out just level three, can you come tomorrow? I

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wanted to know more, but he just said, you'll see.

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I can't explain it on the phone. The air of

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secrecy carried more interest than warning, I accepted on the spot.

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I textedvilized, after guess who's taking a gig on the

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infamous Level three. She sent back a chain of holy

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water emojusan don't let any of the lights flicker at you.

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That's how it starts. I responded with a photo of

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my Swiss army knife and a jerk about getting hazard pay.

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We'll laughed it off, but I saved her number to

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speed dial before leaving my apartment the next morning. The

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office complex was peer Suburban's brawl, low rise rec single

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stained baige, surrounded by parking and a mote of curve

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grass that never saw child's footprints. Most businesses here coughed

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along for years, insurance brokers, software consultants, two dental clinics,

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the sword of spots that never drew attention unless they

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shut down abruptly. Building beat, though apparently had a reputation.

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Fellman warned me before I arrived. Only Level three's tenants

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churned every couple of years. New companies threw up banners,

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then quietly faded, un ceremonious and unremembered. No other floor

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heard the problem that first day as they rolled my

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toik it into the echoing lobby. No one at reception

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would meet mause. When I mentioned Level three's wing. The

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maintenance guybalding absently chewing a tubic, stood fixing a hard hat,

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areas sign and mumble bad luck. Up there, elevators go weird,

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we lose bulbs fast, not worth the overtime. Everywhere else

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there was friction in warmth. I saw the second four

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start of guy's bantering near the espresso machine, passing back

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and forth, half finished code problems, music leaking out of

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a break room. Was someone celebrated a birthday. The lobby

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polls with the usual weekly hum, keyboards, chattering, phones, ringing,

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the grind of someone's earnest, and bish echoing of glass.

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But Level three was different. The stairwell up felt hollower,

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as if the dryw itself sucked up all reverberation trapping

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sounds before they could grow real. That first walk through copet,

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a little softer underfoot, printed paper still stat perfectly, and

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cabinets and touch was marked by a distinct absence, more

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than anything I could name. No one greeted me an

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eerie hush caught at the base of my skull, leaving

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me impatient to finish already thinking about the espress, so

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I promised myself as a reward. I survived the day

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with nothing but a lock of normal maintenance complaints, a

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reminder to check a one KDHDP table, and an er

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to clean a pair of old ethernet jacks. If I

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noticed anything at all, it was how infrequently the other

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tenants seemed to include Level three in the afterward banterer.

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No one ever said see you up on three, or

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can we meet there tomorrow? It was always lower, meet downstairs,

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let's talk in the lobby. That contrast struck me harder

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as the days wore on. Downstairs had its start up energy, mess, joke,

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spontaneous conversations, but up here, attempts at collaboration seemed stillborn,

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Tasks finished and filed in brittle silence. It was as

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if the space itself discouraged momentum. I chopped it up

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to high turnover and dol decor, but by Friday I

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couldn't shake the sense that Level three strangeness had only

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started to reveal itself. On my second systematic check, I

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brought it yellow legal pad, determined to take everything the

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old fashioned way in case some glitchhaved my digital looks.

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This was knew I'd learned over the years to trust

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paper in weird environments, places where network grimmins liked to breed.

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I made a column for each work station and an

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extra for environmental notes, hoping to isolate patterns. The clocks

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on the computers were still worn. Each shift they snapped

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in you inexplicable times. One even counted backwards for a

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moment before freezing. I copied the discrepancies, jotting annotations in

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the margin. Something odd caught my eye under the fourth desk.

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A square of white about thumbprint size stuck to the

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underside of a particle board. It peeled up easily. A

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thermal stick out, the kind you print to label boxes

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or racks. On the face of it a set of

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handrid in numbers four thirteen. I squinted. Those match the

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work stations errant digital clock exactly down to the minute.

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I bent down and checked the other cubicles. Nearly every

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desk and the row had one of those stickers, each

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gold with a time so matched the computer in front

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of them. Others were off by enough to raise the

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hair on my arms. Not a system m'd seen before,

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not aset tagging, not compliance documentary, just numbers. Back at

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the cluster of desks nearest the kitchenette, I met Sam.

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Sam was one of the few actual boots on the

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Grand staffers. I'd seen young k Poppins on the laptop

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back strain into type with hands that were trembling just

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enough to rattle the mouse pad. I perched next to

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the break room table, trying not to startle them. Something

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up with the drives again, I asked conversational, not wanting

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to spook them. Sam shook their head, eyes darting to

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the work station just as the digital clock rolled backward

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and stopped to tend too. It's not the drives, they muttered,

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half to themselves. It's time that here at good sideways,

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I set alarms and miss meetings. Clocks jump. It messes

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you up, but no one believes me. I wanted to

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push for more, but Sam pulled their sleeves over their

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knuckles and hunched deeper toward the keyboard. I recognized the

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look someone living on coffee and bad's sleep, too exhausted

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to risk more honesty. While tracing cables, I found another

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odd marker email calendar invites in the out box were

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being queued and sent at times that didn't correspond with reality.

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Conference room bookings received at two fifteen hom for meetings

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marked at three p'm the prior day. The software didn't

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report any errors. Even stranger. The breakrim fridge was packed,

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labels left over, his sodas, yogurt cups, all on the

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edge of expiration, untouched. I opened the yogurt cart and

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out of curiosity, the fall seal was still perfect, as

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if forever packed up here, always intended to return, but

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never did. A chime sounded to the elevator far down

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the hall, registering a floor call at a time whine.

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According to my new friends and maintenance, it shouldn't be

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moving at all. I checked the floor display jitter, then

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went dark. Back at the main desk, I noticed the

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office of Voicemail indicated blinking insistently. The playback kyielded only static,

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except for the final moment when something like a shop

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in hail played over the line. Breathless and exhalene at

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the same time. It sounded like someone trying to form

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a word and thinking better of it. I packed up, mentally,

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rehearsing how I justified running fresh diagnostics when management thought

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everything was basically fine. Down the hallway. A Colt snippet

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of a conversation from behind the opate glass of a

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legal firm, sweet voices pitched too low for comfort. Did

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ye see who was here late last night? Again? Always

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just logs, never faces, can't be right. They moved off

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before I could catch more. The conversation ended with the

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door click, faintly out of sync with the footfalls. By

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now my focus had sharpened almost to obsession. I needed

235
00:11:10,159 --> 00:11:13,840
real evidence, logs, video, anything. On my next visit, I

236
00:11:13,960 --> 00:11:15,960
chewed my usual half hearted checks and dug deep in

237
00:11:15,960 --> 00:11:18,600
the ice closet, where racks of service poles quietly behind

238
00:11:18,639 --> 00:11:22,639
cheap metal girls. I pulled up accesslogs while I saw

239
00:11:22,679 --> 00:11:24,759
to her in my palms clammy. Every night, from about

240
00:11:24,759 --> 00:11:27,200
one serum to five sea room, badge records more than

241
00:11:27,240 --> 00:11:29,399
a dozen unique ones. At times showed people entering an

242
00:11:29,399 --> 00:11:33,320
exiting level three, sometimes in clusters, Although times space minutes apart,

243
00:11:33,840 --> 00:11:37,159
the logs didn't skip we cans or holidays. This contradicted

244
00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:39,679
everything I'd seen. No one was here at those ires.

245
00:11:40,320 --> 00:11:42,360
It felt like the phantom office ran a second schiff

246
00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:45,639
on a visible time security camera feeds for those periods

247
00:11:45,639 --> 00:11:49,360
were useless. File corruptions, static ovolais, video just gone. I

248
00:11:49,360 --> 00:11:51,799
spent an hour of trying to extract anything salvageable, and

249
00:11:51,840 --> 00:11:54,480
finally managed to restore one back up. A thirty second

250
00:11:54,519 --> 00:11:57,159
grainy clip walked at the corners, like a table left

251
00:11:57,159 --> 00:11:59,879
in some one's car too long in knit. Nothing moved

252
00:11:59,879 --> 00:12:02,879
for half a minute. Darkness reigned, fractured by shirds of

253
00:12:02,919 --> 00:12:05,519
light from the far side of the open plant floor. Then,

254
00:12:05,759 --> 00:12:08,240
as if materializing from the air, a silhouette appeared in

255
00:12:08,279 --> 00:12:10,480
the screen's left quarter, sitting heavily at a desk and

256
00:12:10,559 --> 00:12:13,720
moving head bowed with a sharp jerk. The head straightened

257
00:12:13,720 --> 00:12:15,919
and the figure stout straight at the security camera before

258
00:12:15,919 --> 00:12:18,559
the feed cut out static, blurring everything into noisey nothing.

259
00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:21,720
Days later, on a hunch, I called the building's genitorial

260
00:12:21,759 --> 00:12:25,399
contract manager, hoping for a straightforward answer about the badge discrepancies.

261
00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:28,120
Our people don't clean level free at night, she said,

262
00:12:28,120 --> 00:12:31,240
with steely finality. I won't send them. After six we

263
00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:33,879
locked the doors. The crew wouldn't come back. Heard things.

264
00:12:34,519 --> 00:12:37,759
She wouldn't elaborate further. Whenever I tried to talk to

265
00:12:37,799 --> 00:12:40,279
form a Level three employees tracking them through linked in.

266
00:12:40,279 --> 00:12:43,679
Our company a Luney lists most ignored my messages. When

267
00:12:43,679 --> 00:12:46,039
I finally got a reply from a next manager, Lena,

268
00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:48,480
it was a single email sent at three in the morning.

269
00:12:48,639 --> 00:12:51,240
Astros don't trust what you remember from up the asterisk.

270
00:12:51,759 --> 00:12:54,960
That was it. No greeting, no signature, only dread in

271
00:12:54,960 --> 00:12:58,440
the white space below. When I pressed Felman, the property manager,

272
00:12:58,480 --> 00:13:01,159
he became a ghost himself, dodging car replying to emails

273
00:13:01,159 --> 00:13:04,120
with canned lines. When I did finally catch him face

274
00:13:04,159 --> 00:13:06,240
to face a mid day sight inspection, he shud off

275
00:13:06,240 --> 00:13:09,840
the logs old floor, old sensors, people, exaggerate tech gets,

276
00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:13,320
wid clocksdriff don't read into office gossip. The line was

277
00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:15,360
so practiced I wondered if it was the only explanation

278
00:13:15,399 --> 00:13:18,600
he'd ever offered. Meanwhile, something new dog in my steps.

279
00:13:19,279 --> 00:13:22,159
Memory slips first so slight, I thought nothing of them.

280
00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:25,480
I kept misplacing tools of crimper left behind. My MARKO vanished,

281
00:13:25,480 --> 00:13:28,559
only to appear beneath paperwork I hadn't yet handled. I

282
00:13:28,639 --> 00:13:31,559
started retracing steps, convinced I'd forgotten to finish a run

283
00:13:31,559 --> 00:13:34,120
of diagnostics, only to find notes in my legal pad

284
00:13:34,120 --> 00:13:37,240
in my handwriting sometimes out of order. A few lines

285
00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:39,240
didn't look like my hand at all, scribbles with loops

286
00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:41,840
and sharp serfs, where mine was always blocky and plain.

287
00:13:42,399 --> 00:13:44,840
I told myself I was tired, distracted by the puzzle.

288
00:13:45,320 --> 00:13:47,279
The last real straw was the night I decided to

289
00:13:47,279 --> 00:13:50,399
push through after ires, sick of chasing shadows and half truths.

290
00:13:51,080 --> 00:13:53,600
That afternoon, feigning a late conference call, I hid behind

291
00:13:53,639 --> 00:13:56,799
start janitor's boxes in the utility closet, knees drawn to chest,

292
00:13:56,879 --> 00:13:59,919
my phone set silent, personal audio recorder clipped inside my car.

293
00:14:00,679 --> 00:14:02,960
The air was thick, heavy with ancient mop water and

294
00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:07,240
copper toner. Just after midnight, the corridor outside changed. The

295
00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:11,159
white noise deepened, Voices low and and hurried, rose and fell,

296
00:14:11,159 --> 00:14:14,080
a language of work, but without feeling. I peered through

297
00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:16,639
a slim slit and a closet door, in the swath

298
00:14:16,639 --> 00:14:19,360
of cubicles flooded with darkness. I saw what I hadn't

299
00:14:19,399 --> 00:14:21,600
dared expect. People, at least seven or eight of them,

300
00:14:21,679 --> 00:14:23,679
all in neat business attire, moved in and out of

301
00:14:23,679 --> 00:14:27,480
the emptied legal office. They spoke softly, voices always overlapped,

302
00:14:27,480 --> 00:14:31,120
A continuous compulsitied murmur, each returned to a computer, never

303
00:14:31,159 --> 00:14:34,399
the same one. Twice stations flared awake under their hands,

304
00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:38,519
clocks blinking, login screens, visited and revisited. They worked in

305
00:14:38,559 --> 00:14:41,519
total darkness, not a lump or phone screen lighting their faces.

306
00:14:42,200 --> 00:14:44,360
No one reacted when a chair rattled or a monitor

307
00:14:44,399 --> 00:14:47,200
issued a feigned alarm. Once, when my sleep brushed a

308
00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:49,600
closet door, the nearest figure paused, tilting their head in

309
00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:51,759
a way that made my ribcage titan, before resuming the

310
00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:54,919
route dunks and keystrokes. Their movements were each rapic of

311
00:14:54,919 --> 00:14:58,440
the last open file type, shrug, stand, circle, back, repeat.

312
00:14:59,039 --> 00:15:01,559
I pressed record on my phone, not show what proof

313
00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:04,480
I even wanted. The figures carried a sense of ritual

314
00:15:04,519 --> 00:15:07,399
more than labor. The work repeated and precise, each task

315
00:15:07,440 --> 00:15:11,279
slighted by its apparent meaninglessness. I noticed after the third

316
00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:13,600
or fourth round that they kept resetting the clock, sometimes

317
00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:16,879
turning them forward, sometimes backward, always different from the real eyre.

318
00:15:17,519 --> 00:15:20,320
I stayed cleared there, barely breathing, afraid if I shifted

319
00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:22,679
the box beside me, the whole hallucination would shatter, or

320
00:15:22,679 --> 00:15:26,120
worse notice me. My phone vibrated as silent alarm telling

321
00:15:26,159 --> 00:15:28,600
me it was almost eleven fifteen of them. I made

322
00:15:28,600 --> 00:15:30,919
myself count to two hundred, then eased out, careful not

323
00:15:30,960 --> 00:15:33,679
to let the door creak. The hallway was empty again,

324
00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:36,759
save the faint lingering trace of perfume and toner. I

325
00:15:36,799 --> 00:15:39,360
slunk to the elevator, bootsteps muffled by a carpet that

326
00:15:39,399 --> 00:15:41,960
now felt too thick and yielding. At the doors, I

327
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:44,720
went to badge up, swiping my keeekout as always, the

328
00:15:44,759 --> 00:15:47,279
reader beaped to cold blue. But when the log and

329
00:15:47,360 --> 00:15:50,080
feedback displayed, it flashed two forty seven arms exs of

330
00:15:50,080 --> 00:15:53,799
recorded My heart ram my chest. It was just after

331
00:15:53,840 --> 00:15:56,919
eleven my watch match, So did my phone. The building's

332
00:15:57,000 --> 00:15:59,279
main clocked by the lobby a brutally standard LCID. We'll

333
00:15:59,279 --> 00:16:01,360
play read five eleven holm. As I passed through to

334
00:16:01,399 --> 00:16:04,960
the dark hatem my skin prickled. Were all these clocks

335
00:16:05,039 --> 00:16:08,360
broken out of phase? Or was I genuinely unstuck from

336
00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:11,200
the normal timeline of an over lit office perk. When

337
00:16:11,200 --> 00:16:13,200
I checked my phone in the cart that prickle became

338
00:16:13,240 --> 00:16:16,360
an ache. There scattered through my calendar, as if planted

339
00:16:16,360 --> 00:16:18,679
by another hand, were interest time stamped on days I

340
00:16:18,759 --> 00:16:21,559
hadn't yet lived. I scrolled up text sent to CALLI

341
00:16:21,639 --> 00:16:24,600
and Eliza, half finished memos, notice to myself that I

342
00:16:24,639 --> 00:16:27,200
would swear I'd never written finish report too thirty pum

343
00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:31,320
Yesterday meeting was scheduled seven forty six SAM TBD. Some

344
00:16:31,559 --> 00:16:34,480
read like cryptic reminders. Don't check the clocks, don't check

345
00:16:34,559 --> 00:16:37,279
the clocks, don't a trail into a single character. I

346
00:16:37,360 --> 00:16:39,559
flipped my messages and stared at a draft and sent,

347
00:16:39,679 --> 00:16:42,639
don't trust what do you unfinish? Then nothing? My hand

348
00:16:42,679 --> 00:16:45,320
shook As I walked into the elevator for the last

349
00:16:45,399 --> 00:16:47,559
time that night. My gaze cut upward to the mirrored wall.

350
00:16:48,200 --> 00:16:50,960
My own face regarded me a little haggard, a little sweaty,

351
00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:53,080
but for an instant, just as the door slid shot,

352
00:16:53,159 --> 00:16:55,240
my reflection's eyes glimmered a colder brand than my own,

353
00:16:55,320 --> 00:16:57,840
and the jaw seemed too wide, the lips compressed and unfamiliar,

354
00:16:57,919 --> 00:17:02,039
as if rivolaid from a different image. I froze, I blinked.

355
00:17:02,759 --> 00:17:05,079
Then the face was my own, again, wary and awake,

356
00:17:05,200 --> 00:17:07,839
alive in a feeling light. That moment stuck with me.

357
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:10,599
The question settling under my ribs was level three. Whatever

358
00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:13,359
haunt its present, already beginning to work itself inside me too.

359
00:17:14,119 --> 00:17:16,799
I shut my eyes for one steadying breath, adrenaline still

360
00:17:16,799 --> 00:17:19,640
singing under the surface. I tried to tell myself it

361
00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:22,519
was glare exhaustion, another trick of too many days, cramped

362
00:17:22,519 --> 00:17:25,240
between clents and caffene. But I couldn't shake the memory

363
00:17:25,279 --> 00:17:26,960
of the other eyes, steady of them my own with

364
00:17:27,079 --> 00:17:30,079
a patient, attentive indifference. They belonged to some one who

365
00:17:30,160 --> 00:17:33,480
belonged here, or maybe I thought, with ugly curiosity, they

366
00:17:33,519 --> 00:17:36,680
had once belonged to some one else altogether. Traffic sound

367
00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:38,759
started as a faint thrum through the glass and true weight.

368
00:17:38,799 --> 00:17:41,640
As I walked out, A couple Juna books flickered against

369
00:17:41,640 --> 00:17:44,039
the over bright security lights over the empty lot, making

370
00:17:44,079 --> 00:17:47,519
the world outside seem newly and faintly artificial. I checked

371
00:17:47,559 --> 00:17:50,839
my phone again, rereading messages, searching for any trace of sanity.

372
00:17:51,480 --> 00:17:53,720
Kelly had sent a mem Liza, blurry cap photo, and

373
00:17:53,720 --> 00:17:57,240
a still alive but with three question marks. I tapped back,

374
00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:00,319
fingers slow late night at the office, seaward stuff might

375
00:18:00,359 --> 00:18:03,799
be losing it. I tigged an emergia barely recognized, let

376
00:18:03,839 --> 00:18:06,000
the phone dangle before thinking better and deleting the whole

377
00:18:06,039 --> 00:18:08,960
message before it sent. Once home, the steadiness of my

378
00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:12,000
apartment lamplight, rumble quilt. The faint smell of detergent felt

379
00:18:12,039 --> 00:18:15,400
both balm and accusation. The clock and the stove readissensible

380
00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:18,680
eleven thirty eight them. I brewed adica, opened my laptop,

381
00:18:18,759 --> 00:18:20,759
tried to watch half an episode of a detective show,

382
00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:24,079
just for its familiar rhythm, but nothing took. Every few

383
00:18:24,119 --> 00:18:26,880
minutes I checked the clock, each device agreeing, anchoring me

384
00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:30,119
back to the certainty of normal chronology. Only when I

385
00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:32,119
finally opened my work back to dump out the day's

386
00:18:32,200 --> 00:18:34,079
art facts, I found the yellow legal pad open to

387
00:18:34,079 --> 00:18:36,440
a page covered in cramped cross hatch numbers, many of

388
00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:38,839
which I'd swear on Eliza's life. I hadn't written odd

389
00:18:38,839 --> 00:18:42,400
times initials, I didn't recognize column headers without any sense.

390
00:18:43,319 --> 00:18:46,160
Something in my handwritting some lines unmistakably my own room

391
00:18:46,240 --> 00:18:48,440
three hundred eighteen. A check for second router the but

392
00:18:48,559 --> 00:18:50,799
half the text elongated early, boldly, as if my hand

393
00:18:50,839 --> 00:18:54,079
had forgotten itsself. Mid sentence, I traced my finger along

394
00:18:54,119 --> 00:18:56,039
a few rows, then dropped the pad and past the

395
00:18:56,119 --> 00:18:59,319
kitchen chest. Tight I must be missing sleep, I told

396
00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:02,279
myself overworking, letting the weirdness of the job prey on me.

397
00:19:02,920 --> 00:19:05,079
But the next morning brought no relief, just a bland,

398
00:19:05,279 --> 00:19:09,200
persistent weight of unfinished work. Sunday felt deliberately misplaced, as

399
00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:11,480
if a single day out of sync. I went for

400
00:19:11,559 --> 00:19:14,200
a run, jogged past the strip mall's dodsched neighborhood dogs,

401
00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:17,400
tried to recalibate back inside, settling with a munk of

402
00:19:17,440 --> 00:19:19,759
burnt coffee. A surveyed the rest of my notes, searching

403
00:19:19,839 --> 00:19:22,400
for logic. Each stick of time ever lowered clock an omally,

404
00:19:23,079 --> 00:19:26,000
no clear pattern. Nothing tied them together, except that none

405
00:19:26,039 --> 00:19:28,799
belonged to the day they insisted on occupying. It was

406
00:19:28,839 --> 00:19:30,880
then a moment before noon that I received a text

407
00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:33,640
from Sam. Their number appeared with shaking Curtie on the

408
00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:36,920
lock screen. He saw the night shift writ no greeting,

409
00:19:37,079 --> 00:19:40,680
just that. I hesitated, My thumbs hovered over the keyboard.

410
00:19:41,319 --> 00:19:44,319
I started to type, erased, tried again. I saw people, Yeah,

411
00:19:44,319 --> 00:19:48,319
who are they? A long pause, then no one knows.

412
00:19:48,359 --> 00:19:49,960
I tried to track them to a good after I

413
00:19:50,039 --> 00:19:52,519
started losing days. Don't hang around at night or don't

414
00:19:52,559 --> 00:19:56,640
stay long direct reflexive dread. I had almost called back,

415
00:19:56,680 --> 00:19:59,599
almost let the urge to connect override my hesitation, but

416
00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:03,160
something in the bluntness of their warning stitch my mouth shut. Instead,

417
00:20:03,359 --> 00:20:05,680
I scrolled through our old conversation, half of which now

418
00:20:05,759 --> 00:20:08,519
seemed out of sequence. Earlier, they'd mentioned about sleep and

419
00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:10,720
the loops and asked if I'd woken up as someone

420
00:20:10,759 --> 00:20:13,920
else's cuvcle yet I'd replied, but the time stumps didn't

421
00:20:13,920 --> 00:20:17,119
match my memory. Some replies seemed to proceed to questions,

422
00:20:17,759 --> 00:20:20,920
some reference moments we hadn't discussed. A sense of vertigo

423
00:20:20,960 --> 00:20:22,720
gathered in the pate of my stomach, and I shoved

424
00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:25,000
the throne across the table, watching it spin against the

425
00:20:25,079 --> 00:20:29,079
cheap pine grain. Still work demanded a return if level

426
00:20:29,119 --> 00:20:31,720
three made me anxious. Level three was also a puzzle,

427
00:20:31,759 --> 00:20:35,119
and I'd never left a puzzle unfinished. That afternoon, I

428
00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:37,920
parked whither CCTV could catch me entering, let myself into

429
00:20:37,960 --> 00:20:40,039
the back stair, and resolved to keep my visit short.

430
00:20:40,680 --> 00:20:42,680
I told myself all I needed was a hard copy

431
00:20:42,720 --> 00:20:45,480
of the network locks, another round of cable checks, and

432
00:20:45,599 --> 00:20:47,640
then I'd walk uite. A gentle warning for Feldman and

433
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:50,680
Shell the headache as a lesson, learned that illusion ended.

434
00:20:50,720 --> 00:20:54,000
The minute I passed reception. Noon sun threw warp rectangles

435
00:20:54,039 --> 00:20:57,039
on the office floor. The third floor, per department policy

436
00:20:57,119 --> 00:20:59,960
remained for escent light and windowless no sunlight. Ever, try

437
00:21:00,039 --> 00:21:02,880
rually making it inside. The hum events were still there

438
00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:04,920
and not quite white, noise that warbled as I walked

439
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:07,440
the hole. My shoes made a different kind of sand,

440
00:21:07,559 --> 00:21:10,359
a hush, slippery than usual, as if the carpet fibers

441
00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:12,240
had been combed against the gray, and catching the tread

442
00:21:12,279 --> 00:21:15,319
of my souls. Near the elevators, I passed the glass

443
00:21:15,319 --> 00:21:17,839
fishball conference room with a wall mounted TV cycling through

444
00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:21,559
blue no signal screen. My reflection unremarkable, I told myself,

445
00:21:21,680 --> 00:21:23,559
But I checked it twice. Drifted along with the glass

446
00:21:23,799 --> 00:21:26,759
as if in the surface of an aquarium. No blowed figures.

447
00:21:26,799 --> 00:21:29,880
This time my side clouded the surface. Before I moved on.

448
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:32,680
Back at the eight closet, I flipped open the badge

449
00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:35,720
locked to print fresh access records. If the records were

450
00:21:35,759 --> 00:21:37,839
to be believed, someone had keyed in at two forty

451
00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:39,920
one and that morning an employee with the badge number

452
00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:42,759
that according to Felman's master database, didn't belong to any

453
00:21:42,799 --> 00:21:46,440
current tenant. The file for that badge was locked and accessible.

454
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:48,880
I made a copy of the entry on sticky note,

455
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:51,200
resolved to keep it with me. As I reset the

456
00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:53,359
printers at each work station, the clock seemed to flecker

457
00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:55,279
at the periphery of my vision, as if aware they'd

458
00:21:55,279 --> 00:21:57,839
been caught in a lie. I watched one digital face

459
00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:00,079
roll soddenly forward from three eighteen pen de cix nex

460
00:22:00,119 --> 00:22:01,440
twelve of them in the time it took me to

461
00:22:01,519 --> 00:22:04,039
dust a screen. My heart kept up is now familiar

462
00:22:04,079 --> 00:22:07,000
to step awe in irritation. The stuttering disbelief of someone's

463
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:10,039
still trained to expect literal physical causes bad wiring malware

464
00:22:10,039 --> 00:22:12,440
it must configure to Maine. I was halfway down the

465
00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:14,519
Hahle Way when a woman in business casual slipped from

466
00:22:14,519 --> 00:22:17,279
a sweet near the supply closet. I recognized her from

467
00:22:17,319 --> 00:22:20,119
my first day parallegal or maybe assistance from the legal

468
00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:23,279
firm who'd kept their heads down. Excuse me, she said,

469
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:26,359
almost colliding with me. Her tote bag was heavy enough

470
00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:29,480
to sway behind. Do you need assistance with the network?

471
00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:33,640
I tried the line neutral all business. She brushed past me.

472
00:22:33,759 --> 00:22:36,759
Chintucklow and shook her head, just late for a meeting,

473
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:39,920
she muttered as she vanished behind the stairwell door. However,

474
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:42,640
I caught her pause almost imperceptibly at the level three sign,

475
00:22:42,680 --> 00:22:45,680
her knuckles squeezing the strap until they widened. I listened

476
00:22:45,680 --> 00:22:47,839
for the echo of her steps below, sharp and fast,

477
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:50,680
as if she was feeling some invisible pursuit. I'd begun

478
00:22:50,759 --> 00:22:53,079
to note their smaller details were cycled. They were always

479
00:22:53,079 --> 00:22:55,519
seemed specially dry and sweet. The bray Combs fridge never

480
00:22:55,559 --> 00:22:58,000
seen to accumulate more trash, the untouched for its slowly

481
00:22:58,039 --> 00:23:01,279
collecting dust in perfect and disturbed arrangements. I took a

482
00:23:01,319 --> 00:23:04,680
photo tan stumped it. Twenty minutes later. When I returned,

483
00:23:04,759 --> 00:23:07,319
the fridge was restocked, same foods, but the packaging different.

484
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,359
Yoga dated two days ahead, sowed as from brand's I

485
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:14,960
didn't recall seeing since college. I blink repeatedly, confused. Nothing

486
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:18,000
else in the kitchen had moved. Each moll encounter etched

487
00:23:18,039 --> 00:23:21,359
itself into my memory, sharpening my focus. I moved through

488
00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:24,119
the space more carefully, now touching surfaces as expecting the

489
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:27,599
world to buckle beneath my fingers. Later that afternoon, sound

490
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:30,519
texted again, don't let it get familiar. I asked what

491
00:23:30,559 --> 00:23:33,559
they meant, half wanting, half dreading a response. The reply

492
00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:35,880
came as I was kneeling under another desk, tracing a

493
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:38,799
cable routine. Will edyd their set timers change up what

494
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:40,920
ye do? Don't ever sit at the same desk twice.

495
00:23:41,599 --> 00:23:44,440
I laughed at the superstition, but even skepticism weighed less

496
00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:46,799
than the urge to obey. When I made my final

497
00:23:46,839 --> 00:23:49,160
sweep for the day, I tried at the waistcap in sequence,

498
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:51,960
moving desk to desk at random, never lingering at one

499
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,599
work station for more than two or three minutes. It

500
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:57,000
felt silly, as if I was playing musical chairs with

501
00:23:57,079 --> 00:24:00,400
invisible rolls. But around the eight stop, a strain sensation

502
00:24:00,519 --> 00:24:04,440
settled over me, like dejauvu, but fergmented. Each bob felt

503
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:06,039
more and more like an echo of one. I just

504
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:08,079
left the furniture of a laughing in my memory so

505
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:09,720
subtly I wasn't sure if I had been there the

506
00:24:09,799 --> 00:24:12,839
moment before or the moment after. In one cubicle, I

507
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:14,640
found the legal pad i'd been missing, open to a

508
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:17,000
page covered with mirrored writing, as if the numbers had

509
00:24:17,039 --> 00:24:20,000
bled through from another sheet. My spine unlocked a ripple

510
00:24:20,039 --> 00:24:23,759
of fear. After five p m, the floor's normal exodus began.

511
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:27,279
Quite doors closed, the vending machine shut its illuminated face,

512
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:29,720
and a faint shuffle of the janitorial crew began. Down

513
00:24:29,759 --> 00:24:32,319
on to I stood in the stairwell and looked down.

514
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:34,880
On every flight, the sound of voices and keyboard clatter

515
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:37,480
filtered upward, always just around the bend, but never close

516
00:24:37,559 --> 00:24:40,640
enough to resolve. Instead of going home, I sat in

517
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,200
the corridor near the elevator and listened recording device on

518
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:46,680
phone in hand. I waited, pressing myself against a wall

519
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:48,759
so the sensors above would think the four was empty.

520
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:51,640
For more than an hour, nothing happened except the slow

521
00:24:51,759 --> 00:24:54,359
chairing of the building's mechanical heart ah TRAC pulsing, the

522
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,440
elevator dinging faintly at three minute intervals, sometimes at five,

523
00:24:57,799 --> 00:25:00,240
never at the same moment. Twice I check id at

524
00:25:00,279 --> 00:25:02,440
the intervals on my pad, but the times didn't match

525
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:05,839
any world time zone. Eventually, boredom in a slow mounting

526
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:07,759
dred got the better of me. I got up, checked

527
00:25:07,759 --> 00:25:10,119
the wall for motion sensors, and walked just for a minute.

528
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:13,279
Looping back into the first row of cubicles, I gannced

529
00:25:13,279 --> 00:25:16,119
into a couple of offices. Some were pristine, others as

530
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:18,960
if an invisible meeting had just concluded, had chairs askew

531
00:25:19,039 --> 00:25:21,559
and coffee cups warm in the dust. That's when I

532
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:23,799
heard the telltale mechanical snap of the elevator at a

533
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:25,799
time when every badge log i chick should have shown

534
00:25:25,799 --> 00:25:28,839
the building empty another elevator time. Just at the edge

535
00:25:28,839 --> 00:25:31,599
of earing, the doors whined but didn't open. I leaned

536
00:25:31,599 --> 00:25:34,519
close to the elevator panel. The display flashed three in

537
00:25:34,599 --> 00:25:37,759
quick succession, then blanked to a single horizontal line. I

538
00:25:37,839 --> 00:25:40,559
pushed the cold button. Nothing happened, not even the telte

539
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,319
hum of the left descending from above. After a moment,

540
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:45,440
the display flickered to one thirty arms, then back to

541
00:25:45,519 --> 00:25:48,119
five seven pound, then blank. I pressed my phone to

542
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,960
record speaking low level three elevator panel display flickering floor

543
00:25:52,039 --> 00:25:54,799
call registered. I had to check the wall clock is

544
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:59,079
LCD read six forty six perm I blinked. The fawn

545
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:02,359
screen said five to twenty eight. My wristwatch and old

546
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:05,519
analog said three fifty and in the mirrored chrome of

547
00:26:05,519 --> 00:26:08,039
the elevator's edge. I again saw two things at once,

548
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:10,720
my face tight with concentration, and behind it for a blink,

549
00:26:10,839 --> 00:26:13,000
and then gone a white set pair of brown eyes glasser,

550
00:26:13,079 --> 00:26:15,640
and fluttered on my own, staring sideways as if counting

551
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:19,640
down enough. I decided was enough for one night. I

552
00:26:19,759 --> 00:26:22,640
slipped down the stairle, hopping every second step on the

553
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:25,039
landing blow the motions and so lights fired late. I

554
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:27,400
was halfway across the shadowed carpet before the world came

555
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:30,680
abruptly back alive. The difference in air pressure, in light,

556
00:26:30,759 --> 00:26:33,079
and sad jawred me into believing that the downstairs was

557
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:36,720
a safer country altogether. I collapsed into my car, doors locked,

558
00:26:36,799 --> 00:26:38,680
and made my nose as best I could, writing by

559
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:42,240
the weak dum light somewhere between intention and execution. However,

560
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:44,480
the writing on my padgrew's luggish, my hand tracing out

561
00:26:44,559 --> 00:26:47,359
more times, more notations that looped and skidded off the paper.

562
00:26:48,039 --> 00:26:50,640
My exhaustion reached a threshold, a limit beyond which every

563
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:52,480
moment on level three seemed to have spilled into the

564
00:26:52,519 --> 00:26:55,559
next time, losing its proper direction. When I shook myself

565
00:26:55,559 --> 00:26:58,079
awake in my driver two hours later, engine running when

566
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:00,000
should fog to my back was on the passenger seat,

567
00:27:00,279 --> 00:27:02,440
legal pad open to a new page with the words

568
00:27:02,519 --> 00:27:04,480
do not trust the logs written three times and heavy

569
00:27:04,599 --> 00:27:08,000
unfamiliar script. I went inside, locked the door behind me,

570
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:10,880
and washed my hands. The water ran cold for a

571
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:13,839
long minute. I checked every clock in the house, made

572
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:15,759
sure each one lined up with the national time up

573
00:27:15,839 --> 00:27:19,319
on my phone, all displaying midnight in the dot. Satisfied,

574
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,160
I dragged myself into bed and slept hard. But my

575
00:27:22,279 --> 00:27:25,039
dreams grew dense and filmic, full of blank offices and

576
00:27:25,079 --> 00:27:28,960
mirrored faces. People shuffled and endless, identical routines, the same

577
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,480
walk from cubicle to cubicle, the same lifting of a coffee,

578
00:27:31,519 --> 00:27:34,480
morgued to lips, always leaving, always returning to carousel of

579
00:27:34,519 --> 00:27:38,119
the same moment, repeated behind glass. In the moment before waking,

580
00:27:38,279 --> 00:27:40,599
another face hovered behind the surface of my own vision,

581
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,960
memorying in the cadence of office speak, not English or

582
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,119
any language I could name, but pat with the cadence

583
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:47,880
of short cuts, all the size and shrugs of underpaid labor.

584
00:27:48,519 --> 00:27:50,799
Daylight when it called through my curtains the next morning

585
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,440
felt ache heavy. I chewed Lecompto's crawling through my text

586
00:27:54,519 --> 00:27:57,880
and email, hunting for some anchoring logic. A Pateck alert

587
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:01,039
had come Filman's office prompt and bland with it an

588
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:04,200
insign note, thanks for your diligent no further action needed

589
00:28:04,279 --> 00:28:06,799
for now, But my own sense of inertia didn't allow

590
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:10,359
for walking away, not without some explanation, some proof that

591
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:12,599
the floor was more than just a series of locks

592
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:16,480
and overactive imagination. I made another col to Feldman, this

593
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:19,440
time as VOSTSMAO came up instantly a series of digital beaps,

594
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:21,839
strong too close together, punctuated at the end with a

595
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,839
single breath, like a recording cut off mid sentence. I

596
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:27,799
left a message anyway, this is Dylan. I've finished my checks.

597
00:28:27,799 --> 00:28:30,319
I've turned up some oddities with your network logs, timing

598
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:32,559
and security footage. I'd like to review what you know,

599
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:35,279
specifically the access locks for late night events. Please call me.

600
00:28:35,319 --> 00:28:39,359
After five, no response came, since dare my books slowly

601
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:43,400
filled with automated reminders, report due level three four thirteen PUM.

602
00:28:43,559 --> 00:28:46,400
The submit added lock level three south two seven PUM,

603
00:28:46,559 --> 00:28:48,880
each tagged for a time that had already passed. Impossible

604
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,039
to reconcile with the current iro. My online calendar required

605
00:28:52,079 --> 00:28:54,880
more strange entries. Conference call ten forty eight, pom A

606
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,759
ten if possible. I cross checked with my paper notes

607
00:28:58,559 --> 00:29:01,039
there at the same times, drifted in the margins, nested

608
00:29:01,079 --> 00:29:03,400
in handwriting that almost but not quite looked like mine.

609
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,799
I called Kelli to vent. Tell me again, she said,

610
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,880
voice half laughing, half sharpened by my tone. You want

611
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:11,960
to apply for the haunted dark house at the Smithsonian.

612
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,640
The sand's just about weird enough. I tried to lay

613
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:16,720
it out for her. At the badge locks, the computers

614
00:29:16,799 --> 00:29:18,799
that seemed to remember different walls of time, the people

615
00:29:18,799 --> 00:29:20,960
I'd see moving at night, the emails that had vanished,

616
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:22,920
the legal pad now two pages more than it should

617
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:26,160
have been. Maybe it's just mold, she offered, more nervous

618
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:29,039
than I ever heard her. Maybe, I said, swallowing the

619
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:31,319
urged Aasco to stay on the line forever. But if

620
00:29:31,359 --> 00:29:33,160
you don't hear from me by to morrow, come poke

621
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:35,680
around level three. The words hung any air, like a

622
00:29:35,759 --> 00:29:38,400
dare or perhaps a ward. I didn't return to the

623
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:41,559
building that night. I sat at the desk, drawing sketches

624
00:29:41,599 --> 00:29:43,440
of the layout mark in each desk where a time

625
00:29:43,519 --> 00:29:45,880
sticker had been found, drawing arrows to match where the

626
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:48,279
clocks had run backward or flashed through. IROs In a minute,

627
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,319
the faint map began to form clockwise for one corridor

628
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:53,359
and to clockwise for the row lawn the outer wall.

629
00:29:54,039 --> 00:29:56,559
It clicked, then stuttered away, a coherence just out of reach,

630
00:29:56,880 --> 00:30:00,319
like recalling a dream. Two days after waking, when midnights struck,

631
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:01,960
I noticed for the first time that I had been

632
00:30:02,079 --> 00:30:04,240
rubbing at the inside of my left wrist absently, as

633
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:07,319
of some persistent issh that hadn't quite emerged. The skin

634
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:10,440
was smooth and blank, but oppressed harder, back, tense, waiting

635
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,359
for some new mark to appear or resolve. Nothing did,

636
00:30:13,519 --> 00:30:15,720
but in the hustaff followed a deep beneath saddled in

637
00:30:15,759 --> 00:30:19,319
my chest. All I wanted was out. Yet the more

638
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:21,640
Level three knotted itself into my thoughts, the more I

639
00:30:21,759 --> 00:30:23,319
needed to find the hidden for it to seek who

640
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:25,559
or what moved the clocks, who filled the fridge, who

641
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:28,160
recited the skrets of office life? After ires, without witness

642
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:30,920
or reward, I resolved to go back one more time,

643
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:33,160
determined to find at last which part of the pattern

644
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:35,640
had begun to include me. There's a real difference in

645
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:37,480
the way you wake up after a panic, as opposed

646
00:30:37,519 --> 00:30:40,960
to ordinary gradual light filtering. In that morning, my alarm

647
00:30:41,039 --> 00:30:43,240
barely sounded a single chrip, far too quiet, before I

648
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,279
was bowled upright mount dry sheets tangled around my ankles.

649
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:49,400
Outside my window, day light was strangled to a gray blare,

650
00:30:49,599 --> 00:30:51,680
nowhere near as bright as it should have been. I

651
00:30:51,759 --> 00:30:55,119
snatched up my phone, still expecting irrational correction, and saw

652
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:57,279
the time seven forty two m or so it claimed.

653
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:00,839
The wall clock across the room, battery part recently checked

654
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:03,839
read six'. Nine my laptop and touched since the last

655
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:07,519
update glowed at nine twenty. One, INSTINCTIVELY i checked my wrist,

656
00:31:07,559 --> 00:31:09,960
toworts the only thing that hadn't been touched by technologies

657
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:13,799
in visible. Hand it reads seven fifty. Eight at, LEAST

658
00:31:13,839 --> 00:31:15,880
i told myself it was a steady, point something to

659
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:19,079
tie me to the. Now my head, ached my mouth

660
00:31:19,119 --> 00:31:22,039
still tasted faintly of officer at. Metallic every muscle was wound,

661
00:31:22,119 --> 00:31:23,920
up as If i'd spent the night running rather than.

662
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:27,319
DREAMING i tried to reconstruct the Prior, knight the, elevators

663
00:31:27,359 --> 00:31:30,599
the glass reflection the faces that didn't quite. Belong each

664
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:33,079
memory was blundered, slightly as if watched through the wrong

665
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:36,000
end of a. TELESCOPE i found my legal pad tossed

666
00:31:36,039 --> 00:31:38,160
in a, couch a sticky note with that enigmatic badge

667
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:41,359
number folded. Inside the note was crumble smudged with what

668
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,480
looked like graphic dust on the. Margin in a rushed,

669
00:31:44,519 --> 00:31:47,319
HAND i, scrawled do not trust the logs record. Everything

670
00:31:47,839 --> 00:31:49,799
Whether i'd written it or not was an open. Question

671
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:52,799
too restless to, SIT i brew coffee strong enough to

672
00:31:52,839 --> 00:31:55,519
wake the, dead then dumped after three. SIPs unsettled by the,

673
00:31:55,559 --> 00:31:58,599
SMELL i moved round the, apartment checking the arms of,

674
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:01,079
chairs door, edges searching for signs that last night had

675
00:32:01,119 --> 00:32:03,920
followed me some slight shift in the normal order at my.

676
00:32:04,039 --> 00:32:05,880
LAPTOP i plugged in my phone and backed up all

677
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:09,160
my files while my hand ran on. Autopilot last night's

678
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:13,039
voice memos, physistatic nothing, clear just muffled white noise punctuated

679
00:32:13,079 --> 00:32:15,839
by my own. Breeding the audio from my phone sounded

680
00:32:15,839 --> 00:32:18,319
as though it had been played under, water words too

681
00:32:18,359 --> 00:32:22,559
melted to. PASS a vibration broke the. Silence, kelly with

682
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:25,480
her usual timing, texted made it through your haunted shift

683
00:32:25,599 --> 00:32:27,799
or did the echo men take? YOU i stayed up,

684
00:32:27,799 --> 00:32:30,720
blankly thumbs frozen over the. Screen in a moment of

685
00:32:30,799 --> 00:32:33,119
pure chorked, AMUSEMENT i REALIZED i had no answer that

686
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:36,720
felt true for safe to. Send bracing, MYSELF i Called felman's,

687
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:39,119
office half expecting another brush off or the endlessness of a.

688
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:41,920
MACHINE a Chip attemp put me on, hold then Played

689
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:45,119
tinney music until he finally came on voice. TUT i

690
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:48,359
pressed him again about badge logs and night. Access he,

691
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:51,720
demurred with fresh. Energy we're running a. Backport it probably

692
00:32:51,799 --> 00:32:54,440
old convegued. Surfacing nothing for you to worry. About just

693
00:32:54,519 --> 00:32:57,799
finish your. Report don't stay, Late, Dylan, really let's keep this.

694
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:01,160
Smooth he sounded, tired not of, it or may be

695
00:33:01,319 --> 00:33:04,119
that was wishful. Thinking hunger pushed me out into the.

696
00:33:04,119 --> 00:33:06,519
WORLD a diner around the, block eggs and burn hatch.

697
00:33:06,559 --> 00:33:10,599
BROWNS i stared across the laminate, table nervously fingering that sticky.

698
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:13,240
Note my eyes drifted to a small glass clock in

699
00:33:13,279 --> 00:33:16,200
the counter behind the, server its hands taking backward then forward.

700
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:20,160
AGAIN i. Blinked its stopped pointed square at four o'clock

701
00:33:20,359 --> 00:33:23,480
then continued as. Usual back at, HOME i opened my cloud's,

702
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:27,160
storage desperate for. Structure in my private note, folder a

703
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:30,160
loan file had appeared to leave ALFREE behaviorksip loss modified

704
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:33,079
at six thirteen Ams brazil, time according to its. METADATA

705
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:35,720
i tried not to think about how it had gotten.

706
00:33:35,759 --> 00:33:39,519
There my laptop grown at the opening command inside a

707
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:41,920
chaos of FILES i should not have, existed decades OLD

708
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:45,359
pdaf for adaptive, forms screenshots of badge transactions from networks

709
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:48,880
that use a completely different. STANDARD i paid slowly through

710
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:52,559
reductions and blocks of text labeled, private do not, duplicate scattered.

711
00:33:52,599 --> 00:33:56,119
Comments subjective time phased out unmeasurable to sub two hundred

712
00:33:56,279 --> 00:34:01,480
ten lost, time repeated work depersonalization aims were, redacted replaced

713
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:04,759
by strings of. INITIALS a spreadsheet so broad it needed

714
00:34:04,759 --> 00:34:07,640
to be scrolled for. Minutes mapped incident reports level three

715
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:10,360
icons for every company and every. TENANT heug rotated through

716
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,480
the floor across a half. Decade all the incident's systemic

717
00:34:13,559 --> 00:34:16,519
memory loss, vanished work, sessions complaints of a flickering of

718
00:34:16,559 --> 00:34:19,800
voices or looping. Tasks the earliest entries went back six.

719
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:23,440
Years the most recent was last. Week one folder held detailed,

720
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:26,360
logs presumably from sensors hidden about the, ceiling tiles or.

721
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:30,320
Furniture ambient noise, measurements keyboard activity by the millisecond snippets

722
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:33,679
of office. Banter it read like someone's thesis project until

723
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,440
a line near the. End primary aim, developed non, disruptive

724
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,719
ambient nudges for behavioral, cohesion five time in disruption and

725
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:45,239
environmental drift below, it escalation of, protocol psychological, effect, acceptable operational, risk,

726
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:49,400
flagged do not investigate, sensors do not notify participants suddenly

727
00:34:49,519 --> 00:34:52,800
buried in subholders a block of dark. Files participant notes

728
00:34:53,559 --> 00:34:57,079
all redacted by, name with fragmentary. INJURIES i can't say

729
00:34:57,119 --> 00:34:59,039
if this is. REAL i keep waking up and finding

730
00:34:59,079 --> 00:35:01,840
new notes in my own. Hands everyone, laughs dismisses. It

731
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:04,039
the frige is always. Full bad things happen WHEN i.

732
00:35:04,079 --> 00:35:07,559
Work after ires another chilling in its, brevity lost, week

733
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:10,519
no memory from badge In badge, OUT i set up a,

734
00:35:10,599 --> 00:35:12,960
backup copying everything to a thumb, drive but as system

735
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,159
prompt flash of fellon use cannot. Copy the foto blinked

736
00:35:16,199 --> 00:35:18,360
and entire blots of day to vanish before my. EYES

737
00:35:19,119 --> 00:35:21,239
i was able to save a, single grainy, screenshot a

738
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:25,199
plain report header Ambient Behavioral Protocol level three incident phase.

739
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:28,639
Ongoing that was all my hands. Shook AS i let

740
00:35:28,679 --> 00:35:31,760
the system, FINISH i stared at my reflection in the laptop,

741
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:35,079
screen half expecting the other face to re. Emerge at,

742
00:35:35,159 --> 00:35:37,400
noon another text From, sam did you find it? TOO

743
00:35:38,079 --> 00:35:41,199
a chill grounded. Me rather than, REPLY i launched an

744
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:43,400
end to end in cryptoical and hope the connection would.

745
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:46,639
Hold sam's voice when they picked. Up was horse too?

746
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:49,960
Quiet you, know don't? You the breath hissed across the

747
00:35:50,079 --> 00:35:55,159
line about the, experiment the, sensors the time shifts, RELUCTANTLY i,

748
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:59,480
CONFIRMED i saw the. FILES i pressed. On does it ever?

749
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:02,559
Stop one's you? Notice do you feel normal? Again sam

750
00:36:02,679 --> 00:36:05,559
drew a shaky. BREATH i can't tell any. More SOMETIMES

751
00:36:05,559 --> 00:36:07,719
i THINK i remember my old. Life SOMETIMES i wake

752
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:09,599
up and Think i've never left that FOR i even

753
00:36:09,679 --> 00:36:12,880
dreamed The Badge, flocks their, honesty raw and brutal peer

754
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,880
something in. ME i have nightmares, now office dreams looping.

755
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:18,239
FOREVER i try to quit, jobs but all the new

756
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:20,639
ones feel the, same Like i'm just running the same script,

757
00:36:20,679 --> 00:36:24,119
again only with different people's. Faces we spoke in fits and.

758
00:36:24,199 --> 00:36:27,000
Starts small truths followed beneath the surface of dread, time,

759
00:36:27,079 --> 00:36:30,000
slips looping, tasks the sense that life was subtly shifting

760
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:33,400
into grooves that didn't belong to. Us they, confessed almost

761
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:35,519
as an afterthought to a new, habit rubbing the inside

762
00:36:35,559 --> 00:36:37,840
of their left. Forist convinced there was something beneath the,

763
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,639
SKIN i clenched my own wrists. Reflexively it hall's. Tender

764
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:45,000
it was time for. CLARITY i resolved to go back a,

765
00:36:45,079 --> 00:36:48,000
plan not just another goest pass at the. Problem meet

766
00:36:48,039 --> 00:36:52,039
me this, EVENING i, asked after, sunset let's try to

767
00:36:52,079 --> 00:36:56,199
anchor each other at. Least sam hesitated a long, pause

768
00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:59,159
then a conditional If i'm still. Me after that, CALL

769
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:01,679
i loaded my old shackhack, tools JUMP a, cables a

770
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,519
set OF iur motion, cams battery, banks anything to build

771
00:37:04,519 --> 00:37:07,880
a perimeter against the mreality of their. Space among my

772
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,280
tech was a rist, recorder a cheap plastic band set

773
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:13,000
to beap every fifteen. Minutes the idea came from an

774
00:37:13,039 --> 00:37:15,880
online thread above over sleeping. Episodes forced herself to look

775
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:18,800
at a clock to declare the. Present as darkness, GREW

776
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:21,960
i drove with the windows, opened the radio. Low every cross,

777
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:25,639
walk every ordinary traffic event felt too synchronous for a fleeting.

778
00:37:25,679 --> 00:37:28,159
Moment in line at, STOPLIGHT i watched the car heead blankets,

779
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:30,320
left blink or, twice then suddenly switched to the, right

780
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:33,599
as if second guessing an invisible. Instruction no one else.

781
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:37,760
Noticed my heart. Hammered even. So level, three WHEN i,

782
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:41,079
arrived was a study and anti. Spectacle the lobby lights

783
00:37:41,119 --> 00:37:44,480
offered a flimsy barrier against the, dark no, security None

784
00:37:44,519 --> 00:37:47,400
ever after six S feldman had, said my badge still

785
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:49,599
beat at the back, door which unlatched with that same flat.

786
00:37:49,679 --> 00:37:52,360
THUNK i walked through ear that felt colder than physics,

787
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,440
allowed every, sound damp and bass. Memory my hand shook

788
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:57,599
as had passed the legal pad like a, talisman ignoring

789
00:37:57,639 --> 00:38:00,880
the elevator in favor of. Stairs at the there, Landing sam,

790
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,360
waited wearing a patchwork of defense seaberds plugged in but,

791
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:06,239
silent a Battered thermoma clutch so tightly the knuckles showed.

792
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:09,599
WHITE i offered them a quick nervous nod in and.

793
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:12,880
OUT i, said we stick, together lights on, Always we

794
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:16,719
don't try to fix, anything just. Document they, Nodded no

795
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:19,519
sitting at, desks no drinks from the, fridge keep. Moving

796
00:38:20,119 --> 00:38:23,159
the caution was both comfort and. Warning we entered through

797
00:38:23,199 --> 00:38:26,000
the south wing with the power tools and battery packs in.

798
00:38:26,079 --> 00:38:28,119
Hand we set up by our cameras in a conference

799
00:38:28,199 --> 00:38:31,000
room and the main. Corridor the motion detect to crackle

800
00:38:31,039 --> 00:38:33,440
the soft, pane then a rolling series of green, lights

801
00:38:34,119 --> 00:38:36,920
all set to. RECORD i planted a keylogger on the

802
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:39,480
keyboard nearest the silver, room careful to document time and

803
00:38:39,519 --> 00:38:43,360
location for each. Device sund handled the logs, methodically badge

804
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:47,239
ready at nine seventeen them our first. Checkpoint the clocks

805
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:49,519
disagreed as, usual but AS i glanced from one digital

806
00:38:49,559 --> 00:38:52,119
face to the, next each flask the, same straining just

807
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:54,840
for an instant sink. Airror my heart twisted in my.

808
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:59,760
Chest we kept, moving nerves, tight logging every. Anomaly sometimes

809
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:01,960
the air deepened as if a thousand small machines had

810
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:05,320
woken up in the. Ducts overhead scent of plastic stronger than,

811
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:08,840
before lace with faint. Bleach at ten twenty, eight my

812
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:13,800
wrist recorder. Beaped sam. JUMPED i keep expecting something cancer

813
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,559
when you set that. Off they, WHISPERED i didn't tell

814
00:39:16,599 --> 00:39:18,239
them about my own fear of every time the van

815
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:20,920
BEAT a half pictured of face bending toward mine as too,

816
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:24,760
flat jawty. Wide at eleven, twelve motion registered on the

817
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:27,960
east iur rig our feet showed shadow of, movement multiple

818
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:31,119
shapes flickering in, unison drifting down the corridor in a staggered.

819
00:39:31,159 --> 00:39:33,920
Flock we ducked into the copy, room held our breath

820
00:39:34,039 --> 00:39:37,079
watch the display on the. Monitor eight or nine human

821
00:39:37,119 --> 00:39:40,480
figures moved, information each stirring a, cheer sitting rising in

822
00:39:40,559 --> 00:39:44,400
abnormally symmetrical. Patterns their clothing was, nondescript off as casual

823
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:48,199
waterally generic faces were smudged by the, exposure never quite

824
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:51,519
coming into. Focus the office air, shifted as though something

825
00:39:51,519 --> 00:39:54,480
had to merge between the walls from further down the

826
00:39:54,519 --> 00:39:58,239
screen in conference be suddenly. SPATSTATIC a voice flat as

827
00:39:58,280 --> 00:39:59,960
the line of a graph issued from the ceiling. Piece

828
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:05,119
synchronization protocol repeat instructions remain at terminal's work for repetition

829
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:09,159
SEQUENCE sam froze. TREMBLING i reached for their. Elbow my

830
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:12,559
own bread. Yellow another series of commands echoed a check

831
00:40:12,599 --> 00:40:17,079
repository bresette, clocks begin new, shift confirm. Alignment each instruction

832
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,719
felt neither urgent nor, benign just necessary part of a larger.

833
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:24,159
Regime we peered out the door on the floor a

834
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:27,119
slow motion. Ballet each figure opened a folder clack, clack

835
00:40:27,159 --> 00:40:29,400
a fractional delay from the, others as if living on

836
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:32,320
some outer earthic. Lack one figure taller than the, rest

837
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:35,440
genderless and, silhouette, froze then stared straight at my, camera

838
00:40:35,519 --> 00:40:38,199
as if aware of its eye with, HORROR i saw a,

839
00:40:38,239 --> 00:40:41,199
face pixel ay features mirroring horizontally UNTIL i caught the

840
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:45,039
unmistakable impression of, three maybe four different, eyes jaws layered

841
00:40:45,039 --> 00:40:47,800
over one, another flickering in and out of. Existence my

842
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:51,599
mouth went. Dry sam uttered a small fractured, sam covering

843
00:40:51,639 --> 00:40:54,800
their mouth with a shaking. Hand at, midnight the elevator.

844
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:58,119
Chimed the figures in perfect, unity began to, stand move

845
00:40:58,199 --> 00:41:01,480
into different, desks trading, chairs starred, again the pa and

846
00:41:01,599 --> 00:41:05,360
toned synchronization complete next phase. Observation please record feedback for.

847
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:09,920
Analysis the phrase senage allt through me with a, sudden irrational.

848
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:13,239
RESOLVE a grobbed sum by the. Sleeve let's go serve

849
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,800
a room, now they followed. Wordlessly we ducked into the

850
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:19,559
cramped humming cube with the server's wind and rattled behind mesh.

851
00:41:19,639 --> 00:41:22,559
GRATES i pulled the breaker in unmarked, rereads which then

852
00:41:22,559 --> 00:41:25,920
the entire floor plunged into sepulchal, silence only emergency lights

853
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:28,719
flickering weakly to life down the main. Hole the air,

854
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:31,079
changed a sense of, pressure as if something massive was

855
00:41:31,119 --> 00:41:34,320
exhaling through the. Floorboards out in the, hallway the darkened

856
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:37,400
figures frozen, place some, midstep some at a. Desk in

857
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:39,480
the half, light the form seemed to bleed into the,

858
00:41:39,519 --> 00:41:43,000
furniture outlined. SOFTENING a static burst rushed through the vent.

859
00:41:43,079 --> 00:41:45,760
System then a, flat artificial female, voice different than Before,

860
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:49,519
calder almost, curious filled the. Dark unauthorized interruption, DETECTED, sta

861
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:52,559
please identify your assigned. AREAS a few heads in the

862
00:41:52,559 --> 00:41:55,719
crowd turned in mechanical, unison faces still in, distinct eyes too.

863
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:59,440
Large then all at, once several began to walk straight

864
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:01,880
toward the surf. Room the, dillan we need to, Go

865
00:42:02,039 --> 00:42:05,280
sam whispered so. Quietly their voice barely, registered BUT i

866
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:08,800
was rooted to. Transfixed the figures pressed against the, glass hands,

867
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:11,559
played their mouths, OPENED a not to, speak but in

868
00:42:11,599 --> 00:42:13,840
a SILENT i as if gasping for air or remembering

869
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:16,519
a word did lost years. BEFORE i snapped out of

870
00:42:16,559 --> 00:42:19,119
it as sound tured my. Arm, together we made for

871
00:42:19,199 --> 00:42:23,119
the emergency, stairwell heart pounding behind. Us the crowd matched

872
00:42:23,159 --> 00:42:25,320
our pace off for folds that somehow echoed louder than

873
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:28,000
shoes on carpet showed halfway down the hall at the

874
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:30,360
pia blode, again the voice now modulating in and, out

875
00:42:30,519 --> 00:42:32,760
layer in on. Itself are you assigned to level? Three

876
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:36,320
please confirm, engagement join the, cycle participate fully repeat task.

877
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:39,360
SEQUENCE i glanced at somemis wide swept bound in their.

878
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:45,079
BROW i. Hissed we, sprinted desperate for the. STAIRS a moment,

879
00:42:45,159 --> 00:42:47,480
later someone of something caught the metal handle behind. Us

880
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:50,480
the shriek of flexing steel rhinout as the fire door,

881
00:42:50,559 --> 00:42:52,719
bulged as if a hundred hands pressed against the other.

882
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:57,039
Side without, Coordination sam AND i held ourselves against the stairwell.

883
00:42:57,039 --> 00:42:59,719
Exit the door gave, way and we hurled down the,

884
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:03,639
stairs lips my LUNs, burned my hands stung from catching the.

885
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:06,760
Reil we barely paused at the, landing taking the stairs

886
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:09,079
two at a, time pursued by the echoing pound of organized,

887
00:43:09,079 --> 00:43:12,199
footsteps always just a flight, up never quite catching, us

888
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:15,119
but gaining with every. Turn at the ground, level we

889
00:43:15,199 --> 00:43:17,920
spilled into the, lobby faces, slick were, sweat gasping under

890
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:21,880
the relentless. Fluorescence the outer doors resisted our initial, push

891
00:43:22,159 --> 00:43:26,239
magnet locks holding behind. Us the step slowed the glass

892
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:28,679
water the landing reflected our flight behind our wild. Faces

893
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:32,639
rows of blank gray features. Assembled. WATCHING i clawed from my,

894
00:43:32,679 --> 00:43:35,639
badge nearly sobbing with relief When niggsit, beaped the doors flying.

895
00:43:35,679 --> 00:43:39,559
Open cold light air flooded my, lawns some grid my,

896
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:41,800
arm not letting go until we stood a dozen feet

897
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:44,719
from the entry well into the empty. Lot we watched

898
00:43:44,760 --> 00:43:47,400
as the figures inside the lobby, reassembled no longer, running

899
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:51,280
just resuming their quiet habitual. Moves they paced the, gas

900
00:43:51,559 --> 00:43:53,920
one pausing to check a watchless, wrist the other smothing

901
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:58,000
and invisible. Tie The pierre cooat now. Faint synchronization, achieved

902
00:43:58,079 --> 00:44:02,400
cycle completes level. Three quiet. Mode silence, returned broken only

903
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:05,239
by our ragged breeding in the parking. Lot we clung

904
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:08,079
to the last shreds of. DISBELIEF i fumbled with my.

905
00:44:08,159 --> 00:44:11,199
Phone the time too late for our escape read three,

906
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:14,840
three and even though just minutes had, Passed sand's phone

907
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:17,679
was dead at their digital watch blinked all's. Errors we

908
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:19,679
made our way to my car in near complete, silence

909
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,880
exchanging no, words only glances loaded with questions neither of

910
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:26,840
us could. Answer behind, us the building, loomed windows aglow on,

911
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:29,559
three each digital clock display flickering with the, time all its,

912
00:44:29,599 --> 00:44:32,679
own none correct or refusing to acknowledge the world. Outside

913
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:35,760
back in my, apartment the reality pressed its thumpering across

914
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:38,800
every predictable. Moment the legal pad and touch on the

915
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:41,519
kitchen table now bore a single looping, numbers golled and.

916
00:44:41,599 --> 00:44:45,280
Familiar in ten, thirteen my, phone when turned, on ran

917
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:47,599
through a series of time, stamps covering three years worth

918
00:44:47,639 --> 00:44:50,519
of dates and, seconds, notifications cycling through Events i'd never

919
00:44:50,599 --> 00:44:53,719
attended or. CREATED i tried to Call, feldman but every

920
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:56,840
attempt dropped before a single. Wing his number was. Unlisted,

921
00:44:57,119 --> 00:45:00,079
then AS i, watched simply vanished from my. CONTACTS i

922
00:45:00,119 --> 00:45:02,719
looked Up sam's name on Linked, in just to reassure

923
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:04,920
myself this hadn't all been a fever. Dream their profile

924
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:08,079
now returned. Error us were not found my own, resume

925
00:45:08,159 --> 00:45:10,719
hastily uploaded a year, ago no longer referenced The level

926
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,159
three contract with as lines had, been now yawning gaps

927
00:45:13,199 --> 00:45:16,079
in my employment. History emails to the clients who referred

928
00:45:16,079 --> 00:45:18,440
me To feldman bounced, back were recipient blocked or not.

929
00:45:18,599 --> 00:45:22,519
Enabled cold and, Mechanical my, inbox once sordid and, predictable

930
00:45:22,639 --> 00:45:26,159
now grew invasive, reminders automated, entries invitations with date set

931
00:45:26,199 --> 00:45:29,119
in twenty, sixteen twenty twenty, five and twenty forty, one

932
00:45:29,199 --> 00:45:31,960
all tied to recurring meetings On level, three all impossibly.

933
00:45:32,039 --> 00:45:34,679
Overlapping the worst of it was the, echo not in the,

934
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:38,000
building but behind my own. Eyes every so, often WHEN

935
00:45:38,079 --> 00:45:41,159
i stretched or reach for, something my hand would, hesitate trembling,

936
00:45:41,199 --> 00:45:44,119
faintly as if double checking its own. EXISTENCE i caught

937
00:45:44,159 --> 00:45:47,320
myself absently rubbing my leftists over and, over finger, tip

938
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:50,119
searching for something buried under the. SKIN a week, passed

939
00:45:50,119 --> 00:45:52,039
at LEAST i imagined it was a, week trusting the

940
00:45:52,079 --> 00:45:55,000
calendar on my refrigerator more than my. Watch in that,

941
00:45:55,159 --> 00:45:58,920
time everyday thing slipped. Sideways SOMETIMES i found myself already

942
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:00,719
in a room BEFORE i could recall opening the. Door

943
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:04,079
ONCE i set out to buy, groceries only to REALIZE

944
00:46:04,079 --> 00:46:06,320
i was already backing my car into my own, druveway

945
00:46:06,519 --> 00:46:09,599
bags full, receipt reading a date three days. Earlier the,

946
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:12,039
cold plastic scent Of level three seemed to linger in

947
00:46:12,079 --> 00:46:14,760
my clothes in the air of my. Apartment sleep became

948
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:17,639
unreliable when it. Came it, arrived thick with familiar, leaps

949
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:20,920
offices endlessly, resetting, computers flashing the same in correct, times

950
00:46:21,159 --> 00:46:24,119
faces vanishing in, mirrors only to reapply themselves with slight,

951
00:46:24,159 --> 00:46:28,639
alterations never quite my, own never quite someone. Else's OCCASIONALLY

952
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,400
i considered driving, back determined to check if everything on

953
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:34,320
the floor had simply resumed its torpor without. Me the

954
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:36,880
resolves sloughed away as quickly as it, formed were replaced

955
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:38,480
by a dread that felt less like fear and more

956
00:46:38,639 --> 00:46:41,199
likely absence of, RESISTANCE a, gentle constant nudge to remain

957
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:43,480
in my narrow, routine just another loop within the shell

958
00:46:43,559 --> 00:46:46,719
of everyday. LIFE i tried to Reach kelly And, eliza

959
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:49,119
desperate for some proof that the world outside continued and

960
00:46:49,199 --> 00:46:53,079
phased my text both remark delivered yet rarely. Answered those

961
00:46:53,119 --> 00:46:55,800
that were came without time, stamps lagging iris behind real,

962
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:58,559
time or sailing into the future reading saw this. Late

963
00:46:58,679 --> 00:47:01,119
are you? Okay thought you were? Traveling or weird? Glitch

964
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:04,119
but all's good. Here don't work too, HARD i wrote,

965
00:47:04,159 --> 00:47:06,559
back don't let work change, you and didn't expect to.

966
00:47:06,639 --> 00:47:10,199
Reply the paycheck From felton's office cleared blunt and, unmarked

967
00:47:10,199 --> 00:47:12,679
as before a direct to, pulsate with the comment project,

968
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:16,360
complete no further contact. REQUIRE i tried to tax myself

969
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:18,719
with an ordinary its job, next but couldn't recall how

970
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:22,400
one gets started fresh my own resume WHEN i, checked

971
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:24,199
it was missing every file to do with level, three

972
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:26,760
the wayburn paper leaves a lighter shadow of itself after the.

973
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:30,039
Fire on the worse, DAYS i felt brief pulses of lost,

974
00:47:30,079 --> 00:47:32,360
time a flutter in my, chests a cold reciting just

975
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:35,320
behind my. Eyes ONCE i found myself at my kitchen,

976
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:38,239
sink hands, dripping staring into the, faucet shadows if waiting

977
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:40,480
for a routine or, voice or a shimmer of purpose

978
00:47:40,519 --> 00:47:43,719
to instruct the next. TASK i had taken, notes coppet,

979
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:46,079
files saved, evidence yet all of it felt as, provisional

980
00:47:46,079 --> 00:47:48,960
as a dream that grows paler upon. Waking when the package,

981
00:47:49,039 --> 00:47:51,320
arrived it was as unremarkable as a piece of lost,

982
00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:54,039
mail no stickers or return, address just a plane padded,

983
00:47:54,119 --> 00:47:57,480
envelope half torn at the, edge inside a black plastic

984
00:47:57,559 --> 00:47:59,760
badge fall identical to the One i'd used on level

985
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:02,599
through still keyringe with the number etched into its, side

986
00:48:02,639 --> 00:48:05,280
one that matched the times and stickers i'd. Locked the

987
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:09,400
tag was, cold unnaturally so as if, refrigerated my nerves caught.

988
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:13,840
FIRE i, hesitated considering simply throwing it. Out but curiosity

989
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:16,320
may be ritual one. OUT i scanned the fob with

990
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:19,159
every badge reader in my, building each once bat out

991
00:48:19,159 --> 00:48:22,679
a recognition, signal admitting me into cleaning, closets mail, rooms

992
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:26,559
even locked electrical. Rooms WHEN i slept, inside the digital

993
00:48:26,599 --> 00:48:28,639
clocks in each room blinked as if on, cue shoffling

994
00:48:28,639 --> 00:48:31,280
for split second sequences of, times most not matching anything.

995
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:33,639
LOGICAL i always bring the sense of another order running

996
00:48:33,679 --> 00:48:36,920
beneath the natural. One in my bathroom, MIRROR i inspected my.

997
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:39,760
Wrist only then DID i notice what hadn't been there,

998
00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:42,199
BEFORE a, faint grayish, number no bigger than a, penny

999
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:45,480
just under the surface four, thirteen the same time as

1000
00:48:45,519 --> 00:48:49,000
a first sticker the first, AIRNCLOCK i pressed out. It nothing,

1001
00:48:49,039 --> 00:48:51,280
happened but show ran from my fingers up my. Arm

1002
00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:54,119
ever so, often IF i stared long, ENOUGH i could

1003
00:48:54,119 --> 00:48:56,079
almost hear the whir of a copper left running just

1004
00:48:56,159 --> 00:48:58,119
out of, sight or the white noise aforest, air or

1005
00:48:58,159 --> 00:49:00,559
the flutter of unseen hands repeating the same work again and.

1006
00:49:00,639 --> 00:49:03,320
Again there was a quality to the, silence, now a

1007
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:05,239
pressure under the, skin as IF i waited for the

1008
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:08,400
next suckle to click. Forward in that closing, moment standing

1009
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:10,559
barefoot in the hush of my, apartment badge in, HAND

1010
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:13,280
i exhaled and let myself be present in the. STRANGENESS

1011
00:49:14,079 --> 00:49:16,360
i traced the number at my, wrist felt the, stillness and,

1012
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:19,480
listened quiet and alert to a whirl permanently subtly out of.

1013
00:49:19,519 --> 00:49:22,400
SYNC i traced the number at my, wrist felt the,

1014
00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:25,320
stillness and, listened quiet and alert to a, weirll permanently

1015
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:28,639
subtly out of. Sync in the days after the, package

1016
00:49:28,679 --> 00:49:32,320
time itself seemed, thin. Skained morning routines which should have

1017
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:35,440
been muscle memory became. Patchwork tupis already encapped keys in

1018
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:37,599
my hand before my coat text threads. OPENED i hadn't

1019
00:49:37,639 --> 00:49:40,360
meant to. Send i'd catch myself in the middle of a.

1020
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:43,159
Task kaffret an e mail cattle already boiling new recollection

1021
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,760
of beginning brief. Flickers nothing, dramatic but the aggregate felt like,

1022
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:50,480
erosion steady dulling at the boundary between intention and. Action in,

1023
00:49:50,599 --> 00:49:53,360
public strangers stud at me with us light sideways glance

1024
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:56,079
were served for the almost. Familiar my barrister at the

1025
00:49:56,119 --> 00:49:58,960
corner cafey greeted me with my, name but, later collecting my,

1026
00:49:59,119 --> 00:50:01,760
order she, paused, wait aren't you know, sorry as if

1027
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:05,880
freeding a promptophamisplay stage key the world's. Choreography slipped lines

1028
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:08,679
repeated out of. Order, once in a lobby of my,

1029
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:11,360
building my neighbor held open the. DOORS i entered a,

1030
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:13,920
smile freezing for a second too, long they resetting as

1031
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:16,639
he murmured a greeting that sounded like a. QUESTION a

1032
00:50:16,719 --> 00:50:19,960
growing suspicionag beneath the. Surface level three hadn't only marked,

1033
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:22,280
me but subtenly written itself into the fabric of my.

1034
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:25,719
Days my devices conspired a reminders for APPOINTMENTS i had never,

1035
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:29,960
Made recurring calendar events labeled only with strings of, numbers four, thirteen, two,

1036
00:50:30,119 --> 00:50:32,400
seven ten forty. Eight ticking like a course through my.

1037
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:37,119
NOTIFICATIONS i began testing reality with little, rituals placing coins on,

1038
00:50:37,199 --> 00:50:39,960
clocks photographing the, arrangement checking an eye or later to

1039
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:43,880
see if time moody objects themselves had. Shifted sometimes the photos,

1040
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:48,880
disagreed sometimes they, matched which was almost. Worse sleep offers cat.

1041
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:52,039
Sanctuary i'd awake before, dawn the city and its sounds

1042
00:50:52,079 --> 00:50:54,960
coded in a unlanguished, anxiety convinced something urgent was left and.

1043
00:50:55,079 --> 00:50:58,400
Done when dreams, arrived they were not, violent but, procedural

1044
00:50:58,519 --> 00:51:01,800
columns of figures at desks and hovering over, keys faces

1045
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:04,199
composed of flickering slices of PEOPLE i might have glimpsed

1046
00:51:04,280 --> 00:51:07,239
once or never at, all again and. Again in the

1047
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:09,480
logic of the, dream someone was always about to badge

1048
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:11,800
in or badge, out but could not caught halfway lost between,

1049
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:15,920
INTERLOCKS i stopped hearing from. Sam messages failed in their

1050
00:51:16,039 --> 00:51:18,480
ordinary ways at first scent but amount than the unhelpful

1051
00:51:18,559 --> 00:51:20,880
ECHO i got to. Correct this number is no longer in,

1052
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:24,800
service no, bounce no, finality just, gone like pulling on

1053
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:27,320
a thread and finding it, endless spoiling into some deeper,

1054
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:30,679
elsewhere more. Worrying now and Then i'd see their name

1055
00:51:30,679 --> 00:51:32,840
suggested in my own Email, ottoville as If i'd been

1056
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:34,599
writing to them for, months though the out box was,

1057
00:51:34,599 --> 00:51:37,679
empty saved for strings of failed. Attempts the temptation to

1058
00:51:37,679 --> 00:51:41,360
seek certainty the full truth never. Subsided at, Intervals i'd

1059
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:43,960
find myself halfway, through rehearsing What i'd say To, feldman

1060
00:51:44,159 --> 00:51:48,800
arguing the, pattern demanding ACKNOWLEDGMENT i never. Called some instincts

1061
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,800
stronger than pride warned. Me Whatever feldman, you a conversation

1062
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:53,960
would not fix or, clarify might only rewrite more of

1063
00:51:54,039 --> 00:51:57,039
me into level three. SCRIPT i noticed too that my

1064
00:51:57,079 --> 00:51:59,760
own memory Of feldman's face groups, killed like a partially overritten,

1065
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:03,440
footograph general shape of voice, quality no. Edges the WORK

1066
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:06,960
i took afterward felt oddly. Foreclosed interview panels forgot my

1067
00:52:07,079 --> 00:52:10,960
name between, questions, taskless sort of populated and, erased, resumes

1068
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:14,400
emptied and. Refelled friends in my circle remembered only. Vaguely

1069
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:16,280
eye DID i ty stuff for that legal building off,

1070
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:19,599
commerce but the rest had. Faded even my Sister, kelly

1071
00:52:19,760 --> 00:52:22,880
one she did, call seemed. Distracted the weirdest. Thing she

1072
00:52:23,039 --> 00:52:25,480
told me, ONCE i could have sworn you used to

1073
00:52:25,519 --> 00:52:27,280
work for that office With. Sam what happened to that?

1074
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:30,400
Guy my answer slip. SIDEWAYS i think they, Moved but

1075
00:52:30,559 --> 00:52:32,920
INSIDE i rehearsed a, VARIANT i think they were. Moved

1076
00:52:33,599 --> 00:52:36,880
each concrete attempt to reclaim the ordinary fowl. Hollow food

1077
00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:40,159
bought expired too. Quickly shoes wore faster on the left.

1078
00:52:40,239 --> 00:52:43,400
Side Always once in a crowded, lift a quarter a

1079
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:45,519
dozen eyes reflected a half a beat behind, movement as

1080
00:52:45,559 --> 00:52:48,280
if a series are delayed. FRAMES a man behind me

1081
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:50,880
gripped his fawn thumbed to badge, fob tracing a number

1082
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:54,159
with unconscious, precision ten forty. Seven giving up the, EFFORT

1083
00:52:54,199 --> 00:52:57,079
i let my days. DRIFT i avoided all badge operated,

1084
00:52:57,119 --> 00:52:59,519
doors left key fobs out of, reach even covered to

1085
00:52:59,559 --> 00:53:02,679
clocks in my apartment with index. Cards even, so the

1086
00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:06,159
sense of being watched horror worse, nudged never. WANED i

1087
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:09,559
grew afraid of. Mirrors sometimes my own face would, hesitate

1088
00:53:09,599 --> 00:53:11,880
blinking a fraction. Late the JAW atensi in an unfamiliar

1089
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:16,119
configuration still clues trickled leaks in the. FABRIC a digital

1090
00:53:16,159 --> 00:53:18,639
receipt from a supply stoor i'd never, enter turned samped

1091
00:53:18,679 --> 00:53:20,920
exactly two seven per, mon a date two months earlier

1092
00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:23,639
than to. Day an e mail from, myself addressed to,

1093
00:53:23,679 --> 00:53:26,920
myself unreadable gibberish with a familiar sign. Off WHEN i

1094
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:29,159
opened my desk, DRAWER i found my legal, pad the

1095
00:53:29,199 --> 00:53:31,599
ONE i locked, AWAY a new page. Crolled next phase

1096
00:53:31,719 --> 00:53:34,960
engagement required in my small acts of, paranoia a new

1097
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:38,320
passcode for, EVERYTHING a running checklist Of nane's calibration for all.

1098
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:41,800
CLOCKS i realized defense was its own. Performance most telling

1099
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:44,920
was how colleagues and acquaintances seemed to forget interactions almost.

1100
00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:48,679
Instantly conversations looped tell me about the office, job begin

1101
00:53:48,719 --> 00:53:50,679
at what happened up, there each time from a different,

1102
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:54,639
mouth each rendered. Unfamiliar, eventually one, evening when the air

1103
00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:56,800
in my apartment had the plastic tang of level, THREE

1104
00:53:56,960 --> 00:54:00,519
i surrendered to, curiosity or maybe. INEVITABILITY i took out

1105
00:54:00,559 --> 00:54:03,000
the badge fob from the, drawer cold as ever, like

1106
00:54:03,079 --> 00:54:06,639
glinting softly across its euch, NUMBERS i pressed it against

1107
00:54:06,679 --> 00:54:09,960
my own apartments, lock a pointless, gesture but habitual ritual is.

1108
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:14,000
Sick the lock clicked inside my clocks blinked out of,

1109
00:54:14,079 --> 00:54:17,320
sink the oven flash, nonsense the wall clock spun, jitter

1110
00:54:17,480 --> 00:54:20,159
then settled on four. THIRTEEN i stood for a moment

1111
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:22,599
for its, tightening a round possibility that a palpable wave

1112
00:54:22,639 --> 00:54:25,840
of exhaustion broke over. ME a notification, SOUNDED a voice

1113
00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:28,920
memorio playing for my, phone my own, voice, tense speaking

1114
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:31,639
as if from a great. Distance keep, sequence complete, entry

1115
00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:35,840
do not trust, memory repeat, static then asigh on the

1116
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:38,000
screen at, times stamp for an aire that didn't. Exist

1117
00:54:38,079 --> 00:54:41,119
two sixty one, Am march thirty. FIVE i clicked it,

1118
00:54:41,199 --> 00:54:43,280
closed hand, shaking then heard the click of the mill

1119
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:47,679
slot downstairs and the welcome mat and never padded, envelope no,

1120
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:51,360
note just a new, badge, pristine same number the, cycle it,

1121
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:54,599
seemed would never want for. Props one last, EFFORT i

1122
00:54:54,679 --> 00:54:56,679
copied my, files sent them to an old, friend SOMEONE

1123
00:54:56,719 --> 00:54:58,960
i trusted to be outside the. Loop subject line, blank

1124
00:54:59,039 --> 00:55:04,000
attachment tadled all immediately bounce back recipient does not. Exist

1125
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:07,039
oh no. WHIM i visited the, building circled it by

1126
00:55:07,159 --> 00:55:11,159
car from the. Curb nothing was, remarkable lights on off,

1127
00:55:11,199 --> 00:55:14,199
floors janitorial staff visible through the, windows, except of, course

1128
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:17,159
for three there the glass offered only a sellow glow

1129
00:55:17,239 --> 00:55:21,360
outlines frozen behind frosted, panes figure siloutated against undulating, screens all,

1130
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:24,719
still all waiting in my. Pocket the badge four poles were.

1131
00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:27,760
COLD a child's, voice nowhere to be, found echoed from the.

1132
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:30,360
STOWALLS i, pass time to check, in time to check, out,

1133
00:55:31,039 --> 00:55:34,639
unplaceable but the caton's. PRECISE i kept, walking not daring

1134
00:55:34,679 --> 00:55:37,400
to look up. Again the city's business, continued but the

1135
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:41,639
rhythm felt. Misalign one soft bee behind traffic light cycled

1136
00:55:41,639 --> 00:55:44,159
out of, order and even the crossing signs blinked with minor,

1137
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:47,159
hesitations as if expecting an advantage or correction that never.

1138
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:50,360
Arrived that, night sorting re seats on my, DESK i

1139
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:54,000
found one item mize forcing protocol. Complete there was no business.

1140
00:55:54,119 --> 00:55:57,960
Name another for ires rendered. Zero they dissolved AS i

1141
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:00,840
tried to photograph the meach digital image, bland each memory

1142
00:56:00,880 --> 00:56:04,079
slipping half. Away towards, dawn the legal pad Where i'd

1143
00:56:04,079 --> 00:56:06,480
begun everything was open. AGAIN a new set of, numbers

1144
00:56:06,519 --> 00:56:10,440
a neatly ballpoint five, eleven, ten, thirteen four, thirteen and

1145
00:56:10,559 --> 00:56:12,599
on my, wrists as if coaxed there by repetition or,

1146
00:56:12,639 --> 00:56:15,239
compliance a second faint to two appearing next to the first, two,

1147
00:56:15,400 --> 00:56:19,199
seven a sudden, shivering understanding. Dawn none of this was.

1148
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:22,840
Noise each element was a, reminder bearings in a perpetual feedback,

1149
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:25,679
loop a network protocol more persistent than any one's personal.

1150
00:56:25,800 --> 00:56:29,119
HISTORY i realized then that whatever systems had been seated

1151
00:56:29,119 --> 00:56:32,039
Into level three had spread, outward, unnoticed, unremarked like mold

1152
00:56:32,119 --> 00:56:35,599
behind painted, walls wandering my apartment in a restless. CIRCLE

1153
00:56:35,679 --> 00:56:37,440
i toyed with the, badge holding it up to every,

1154
00:56:37,519 --> 00:56:40,000
screen every, lock assisting the urge to use it to

1155
00:56:40,039 --> 00:56:42,079
see what next would change IF i completed some silent.

1156
00:56:42,119 --> 00:56:45,920
Sequence the urge persisted alonging almost to belong or to,

1157
00:56:45,960 --> 00:56:50,119
participate to have the cycle. Advance and yet somewhere at

1158
00:56:50,159 --> 00:56:52,239
the back of my mind a memory not quite, mine

1159
00:56:52,400 --> 00:56:55,119
lean as Warning sam's desperate, voice the layered chorus in the,

1160
00:56:55,159 --> 00:56:58,199
air all the faces lightly out of. PHASE i left

1161
00:56:58,239 --> 00:56:59,960
the badge on the window, sill as if some light

1162
00:57:00,079 --> 00:57:02,639
could ward off the. Influence but even in that there

1163
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:05,199
was uncertainty whether that decision had already been me or

1164
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:08,320
was looping in its own unchangeable. Way in those last quiet,

1165
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:10,599
Hours as the city paled into, MORNING i held my

1166
00:57:10,599 --> 00:57:12,519
wrist to the window, glass felt the faint pulse of

1167
00:57:12,599 --> 00:57:14,760
numbers beneath the, skin and wondered if that subtle and

1168
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:16,960
a toow chilling patient would let me, go or If

1169
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:19,559
i'd simply keep repeating tasks as, assigned, forever part of

1170
00:57:19,599 --> 00:57:22,039
a cycle no one else could. See with a, BREATH

1171
00:57:22,199 --> 00:57:24,360
i decided to leave the apartment for a, walk locking

1172
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:26,599
the door behind, me glancing once more at the. Badge

1173
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:30,360
the air outside felt, thin colder Than february, warranted for

1174
00:57:30,440 --> 00:57:32,400
it did with just the faintest send of burning. Plastic

1175
00:57:33,119 --> 00:57:35,519
AS i stepped, out all the world's clocks on phones

1176
00:57:35,639 --> 00:57:38,360
caused traffic crossings appeared to hestate in their, cycles as

1177
00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:41,239
if the system itself had missed a. BEAT i kept,

1178
00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:44,719
walking daring not to look. Back. Inside the badge remained

1179
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:47,639
its own small, anchor radiating just barely against the morning's.

1180
00:57:47,679 --> 00:57:50,599
Hush whatever work began up, THERE i wonder how far it,

1181
00:57:50,639 --> 00:57:52,960
spread and If i'll ever know when my own time runs,

1182
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:57,400
out and that is the. End thank you for, listening

1183
00:57:57,519 --> 00:57:58,800
AND i will see you in the next. One