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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. My name's Alan McCree and this

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is audio Lord number. When I'm not actually sure I

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ought to be doing this. It's just passed two thirty

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in the morning, and here I am again, with nobody

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around except for the damn flecker and the elevator panel.

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Management said for documentation in case anything happens. So maybe

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this counts even if nobody ever meant these files to

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be reviewed. Or maybe I just want to reassure myself

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that I'm not drifting off, not seeing things, not letting

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the sleep to provation get to me. The building is

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a glass and steel monolith slate gray at night, all

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hard reflections and fluorescent glare. You'd think a place this

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expensive wooden buzz, but the fixtures up on the service

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floor sound like they are a live, constant low drone,

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pulsing in time with their system. Nothing is supposed to

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happen on this shift except for checking access logs, patrolling

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the vacant lobbies, jotting your initials on a clipboard, and

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keeping your eyes open just enough to avoid being fired.

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I walk through the lobby, it always feels colder than

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it should, though there could just be nerves. The white

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marble gleams with the shellac finish, and the only movement

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is my reflection skimming across the doors. I stop in

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front of the bank of elevators, badge out, and the

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display flocks to greet me. Security axis grounded, one floor

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lit a pale blocky thirteen. Some nights there are more floorers.

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When I'm un relief or swapping with another shift to

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night for some reason, all near the thirteenth, my badge

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doesn't even respond to the other buttons, just a little

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red blink. The doors open with a sort of deliberate reluctance.

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I've come to hate metal sighing, rubber buffer sticking. Each

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time I ride up, it's like entering a pressure chamber,

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empty except for the little rectangle of hand sanitizer in

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a corner, and whatever skin prickling sense it's sunder in

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my collar. As the doors close, for a split second,

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I catch myself in the mirrored wall, features pulled down

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a look of late night resignation. If anyone in the

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building ever smile, I can't imagine it. I stand in

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the elevator, listening to the cable strain. The ascent feels

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longer than thirteen floors should. When the chime sounds, it's muted,

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like the system's embarrassed to denounced itself. The door slide

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open onto a hallway skirts so clean it still smells

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of disinfectant, lemonye and sharp, like some one wipe away

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anything human and iro ago and it hasn't recovered. Four

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thirteen is nothing special on paper, off brand top carpeting,

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class partitions, cubicles outfitted in industrial baige. Yet the instant

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I step out, something's wrong, always wrong. Desks are all

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slightly off the grid from the map I meant to follow,

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as if someone tried to reconstruct the floor from memory

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using the rom blueprints. Maybe I should chalk it up

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to the cleaners, but the patterns are intentional. Brewers of

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office stairs pointing subtly the same direction, except for the

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one station at the far window that's always precisely diagonal

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facing out. I check my clipport official diagram, dark lines

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mark in each desk, each pivot point, each bought for

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emergency supply bins, But the arrangement in front of me disagrees.

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File cabinets moved an inch, sometimes two. Once a fish

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bowl of pens were located from the left to the

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right side of a credenza that incidental feels too regular.

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On one desk, just past the first conference room, a

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paper cup stands out catch in the light. Steam curls

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from its mouth, faint but visible under the weak florescence.

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My own coffee is back at the desk in the

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security office. Nobody's supposed to be here. The locks from

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half past midnight said no entry since twenty two nineteen

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Badge system door cams everything zero activity, a kneel hand

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hovering over the cup. Heat seeps up, humid and strong,

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dark ring forming on a clean sheet of paper underneath,

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and impossibly smudges of what looks like clips to come

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the rim. I thumbed through the security app on the

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work phone, checking the overnight video streams times down's match,

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all showing a dull and empty office save for the

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shadow of my rout and the blip of my flashlight

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as I walk past the calms. Not a flicker of

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movement near the desk, just static stillness. I end the

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log broke tight. Nothing to report, I say, which is

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a lie, But I can't bring myself to submit anything concrete.

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I tell myself, I'll double check the layout, I'll watch closer.

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But my hand shakes as I sign off, and the

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lemon scent lingers long after I leave. Before all this,

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before the twelve IROs stretches and stale at ghost corridors,

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Before I started noticing things not written in any manual,

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I didn't know there was such a thing as a

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truly quiet job. The temp agency made it sound almost amviable.

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Security for an overnight shift in a new glass building

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union rate, no report of trespassers in three years. Easy

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money if you can stand the boredom, the manager said,

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flipping through my application. I took it obviously. It was

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a step out from my lust into private warehouses out

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near the canal. The pay came right on time, and

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nobody expected heroics. Just wakefulness, walk the floors, keep your

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notes neat, leave the coffee pots clean, repeated so often

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it became background noise. Still I should have known the

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reputation was off. The structure itself was considered something of

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a legend among city gods, one of those spots you

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e the brag about surviving or refused to discuss. When

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EF first started, folks called it the dead zone, not

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because of danger, no more because nobody working there seemed

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to recall the details afterward, which is odd in the city,

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where most buildings develop histories, stories, even pranks among the staff.

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Here there's only silence, more uncomfortable deflection. From the beginning,

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routines were sacred. My shifts started with a handover from

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the day guard, Bill somewhere past retirement age, bristly mustache,

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always frowning at me as if I'd misuse something of

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his already. Just stick to your assignment, he said the

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first week, thrusting the clipboard into my chest with enough

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force to make the rings rattle. Don't poke around, stay

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off floors or not due to patrol, trust to logs.

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Alan there there for a reason. He stayed vague about

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what that reason was, and even though I pressed with

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the sort of off and friendliness that usually cracks open

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some hidden rivalry or complaint, Bill just shook his head,

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lips a flat line. Later, I caught him watching the

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elevators after shift, as if he expected something to go wrong.

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The day crew, cleaners and maintenance became a curiosity. I'd

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watched them wheel cuts past the elevators pausing for Bailey

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a second, as they had to keep it careful, never

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to let their gaze linger too long. Not a single

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one press for the thirteen. Despite all the joking about

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flaws in luck. Someone even stuck a strip of masking

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tape over the thirteen button during the day, a joke,

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they said, except nobody laughed. My own motives were simple.

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I needed the work. Rent's rent, and nobody else in

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my saturation can turn down a union car and health benefits.

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But even then there was a prickling sensation that went

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with the territory of feeling that the floor I was

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meant to ignore was the one watching me instead of

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the other way around. It's hard to explain the other

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gods swapped assignments without explanation. The regulars in the break

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room tocked up the ghost shift, but their tone went

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fat whenever specifics came up. Between nightly walk throughs at

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hunker over the bank of monitors that passed for a

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control room sipping bunk coffee while the globe from the

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screens made everything look washed out. Incident reports always empty,

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building logs cleared every week. Security policies stuck to the

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same patrols recorded every hour. No deviation from the designated

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floor also standardized. You'd think the building was copying itself

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from an instruction bucklet. Trying to break up the monotony

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at wander by the maintenance station and catch brief snippets

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of conversation. When I dropped fourth thirteen casually into a

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question a gearus stock supplies up, there were just on twelve,

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with the cleaners pretended not to hear. It was as

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if the floor lay under a spell. It's mention sold

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in the alec and unlockom odor. One afternoon, I asked

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Bill if there was ever anything we've laid at night.

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He gave me this blank look, not angry, just tire.

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You follow the routines, allan, keep the logs tight, don't

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get curious on that floor, That's all. Then you switched

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topics so abruptly it was like a drop call. Two

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weeks in vaults of the deserted thirteen four began to

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build up, nagging at the back of my mind whenever

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the shifts grew slow. It would have been easier if

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the avoidance felt natural, but it wasn't. Hit was wilful, deliberate,

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like the whole staff had signed some unwritten agreement never

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to draw attention to that blinking black boarded button behind

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the glass panel. I would have let it fade if

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not for the little things that started to add up.

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How the elevator sometimes paused the strange extra second on

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twelve as of considering something haw the janitor Marisel skipped

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that slot entirely when wiping the buttons, as if afraid

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of getting cleaner on her gloves. And how in the

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store room I once found a box labeled extra thirteen's

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last do not replace, filled with faded placards and single smashed. Namely,

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I returned it reluctantly, pretending nothing out of the ordinary

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had happened. Still, it's hard to shake that sense of

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something just off. Like the time walking my route, my

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reflection in the glass partition seemed to lack a fraction

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behind my own step. Impossible, surely, but it left a

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metallic taste on my tongue. The thirteenth floor didn't just

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attract my curiosity, it needled at it. The second week,

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I decided to test whether anyone any one was actually

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using the space. Maybe there was some one skipping the

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badge systems or a night manager checking on a project.

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But I needed something more concrete. If some one was

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moving through the floor, there had to be a trace.

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That night, after marking off my shift start at eleven

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fifty three, I quietly slid one of the rolling chairs

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about three inches out from its cubicle. The left back

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wheel lined up with a subtle gouge in a tile.

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Easy enough. I also left a penny bright, untarnished plant

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a face upon the thick stack of h off owls

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cluttering a side table near the kitchen ere, something no

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cleaner would bother with. Right next shift, I arrived up

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my usual time and walked the same route retired, but

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keflas the chair I'd moved now set back, not where

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it was supposed to be per the official map, but

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back to the very alignment I noticed on my first

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night that faintly skewed off center look not quite facing

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the aisle the penny an. I skyried the floor, even

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rooting around the trash under the pretense of checking for

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a contraband, but no luck. More intriguing, the coffee cup

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was there again, though this time only half full, and

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under it a faint brown ring stained the blotter where

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last night's cup had sat just a shade off from

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the new placement, almost stacked layer over lay, a timeline

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in staines, no entry in the lock, no glimmer of

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movement on the security tapes. It was as if the

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floor and whatever was tending to retinue to stay just

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out of sight. I opened up the digital logs on

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my work phone, reviewing visitor enters and cleaning passes for

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the week. Nothing. Each time stamp lined up with the

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badge in badge out rhythm, the camera stubbornly refused to

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give up any secrets. Static flicker overlaying the empty queue.

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Farm Maintenance's answer when I send a report about unexplained

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office rossettes was a carbon coppet email asked off or

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exceptionally thorougher. I few of new concerns file a written

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request to maintain routine patrol schedule. No further action required.

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That bland official response only fueled my nerves. Nobody a

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reason is exceptionally throwed at three in the morning with

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a shift rotation as half empty and zero maintenance tickets

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marked as pending. The rissets when just quick cleaning. They

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would deliberate like a person re aligning the room after

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a rehearsal, trying to get it just right for a

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performance no one would see. I started proping in secret,

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as if for a contest was some one who knew

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how to work the rules. My next attempt at catching

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the fountain was subtle. I left a sticky note folded

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inside the equipment closet door, right below the bolt, not

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a normal place, some one dusts. I also set a

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thread of masking tape over the filing cabinet latch, a

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machiece seal that would break if anyone opened it. Instead

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of logging my patrol right away, I waited, turning off

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my flask light and tracing steps backward, straining to hear

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the faintest trace of movement. Nothing at first, no footsteps,

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no lights flickering. But as I made my way back

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an aisle later, I found the sticky note motor sheeped

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into a tiny wedge balanced on top of the mob

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bucket inside the closet. The tape strip gone replaced by

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a neolia identical scrap of fresh edge, but the same color,

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almost seamless. The files on the cubicaldesk had been shuffled

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just slightly. Their order reversed from how I'd stacked them.

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If it was a prank, the perpetrator was a genius

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and insomniac, or both. I checked the locks. Doors that

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should have been shut tight were open. A crack hinges

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creaking so softly I had to hold my breath to

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hear it. Each time I stepped away, I felt the

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tickle of carpe fibers shifting behind me, a fractional scalf,

238
00:11:22,240 --> 00:11:25,559
a breath of pressure. I began jotting down every discrepancy,

239
00:11:25,720 --> 00:11:27,919
using the pretense of equipment checks to proke through cupica

240
00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:31,639
draws and the staff'supply closet. One night, after passing through

241
00:11:31,639 --> 00:11:33,919
the server room, I saw I heard the low drag

242
00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:36,480
of a chair just behind me, A tiny whereasping complained

243
00:11:36,480 --> 00:11:39,600
that faded as soon as I stopped walking. Feeling boulder,

244
00:11:39,679 --> 00:11:42,960
I tried to proke the security terminal deeper. Four thirteens

245
00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:45,000
listening in the digital admin map was the only one

246
00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:47,759
to read unsigned in all caps. Nothing tighter to a department,

247
00:11:47,799 --> 00:11:50,840
tenen or amendes. It was as if it existed outside

248
00:11:50,879 --> 00:11:53,320
the hierarchy and claimed real estate in the busiest business

249
00:11:53,320 --> 00:11:56,279
district in the city. The UB records didn't stop there.

250
00:11:56,879 --> 00:11:59,480
Digging into the aukouse those accessible any weight, I noticed

251
00:11:59,519 --> 00:12:02,080
old maintenance tickets that kept recurring like a bad toothache.

252
00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:04,840
Nightly bulb failure was set Circuit one A or residual

253
00:12:04,879 --> 00:12:08,879
chicout pingjan fourteen AM, please retrain cleaning staff restrict unscheduled

254
00:12:08,879 --> 00:12:12,159
access to thirteen. The documents signed by initials I didn't

255
00:12:12,159 --> 00:12:15,200
recognize disappeared after a two month period. In early summer

256
00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:18,440
eight years ago, a pattern started to emerge, but never

257
00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:21,639
in a way you could capture neatly. Cross checking blueprints,

258
00:12:21,679 --> 00:12:24,279
I noticed that the laminated directory and a maintenance basement

259
00:12:24,399 --> 00:12:26,679
dating back at least a decade simply skipped from twelve

260
00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:29,879
to two fourteen, not thirteenth, but also no actual floor

261
00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:33,120
labeled fourteen on any elevator. It seemed like the space

262
00:12:33,159 --> 00:12:36,000
walk between plans alighted from record, as if the architects

263
00:12:36,039 --> 00:12:40,399
themselves were embarrassed by elevator. Maintenance logs meanwhile, made repeated

264
00:12:40,399 --> 00:12:43,480
references to four fourteen adjustment, even though the public facing

265
00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:47,080
buttons never included such a floor check position. Sens Azero

266
00:12:47,200 --> 00:12:50,879
logged between thirteen slash fourteen. One entry read another had

267
00:12:50,960 --> 00:12:54,360
routine was set to default override building management. Yet try

268
00:12:54,399 --> 00:12:56,559
as I might, I never once saw a fourteen illuminate

269
00:12:56,600 --> 00:12:58,559
on the control panel, nor found a key that would

270
00:12:58,559 --> 00:13:01,519
summon an elevator to the destiny. I had made up

271
00:13:01,519 --> 00:13:03,440
my mind late one night to dig deeper, if only

272
00:13:03,480 --> 00:13:06,440
because the contradictions felt like a deer. I started searching

273
00:13:06,519 --> 00:13:09,200
city permit records after my shift. Cross reference in old

274
00:13:09,240 --> 00:13:12,960
inspection summaries using the building's former names Bird. Within a

275
00:13:13,039 --> 00:13:16,120
knock of sight scanned from grainy dark matrix microfiche, I

276
00:13:16,200 --> 00:13:18,879
found reference after reference to a fourteen flour conference s

277
00:13:18,879 --> 00:13:22,519
wheet multi level tenant occupancy Priminis twenty twelve, and abruptly

278
00:13:22,559 --> 00:13:25,679
notations reading space were classified not for general use, no

279
00:13:25,799 --> 00:13:29,639
public access. Why were classify a floor? It didn't make

280
00:13:29,679 --> 00:13:31,919
sense unless there was something to hide or perhaps something

281
00:13:31,919 --> 00:13:34,960
to bury. That night, driven by restless curiosity in a

282
00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:37,000
dose of real dread, naw, I let myself into the

283
00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:39,840
sub basement records room bade swiping three times to rouse

284
00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:42,639
the old maglock, a faint chemical weakling at the left

285
00:13:42,639 --> 00:13:45,240
of a paint or disinfectant, but it was otherwise deserted.

286
00:13:45,879 --> 00:13:48,679
I scrolled through the digital logs, reaching years back, and

287
00:13:48,759 --> 00:13:51,360
though there were sensor traces, some nearly a decade old,

288
00:13:51,399 --> 00:13:55,080
showing motion in staff access at odd repeating intervals, always

289
00:13:55,120 --> 00:13:58,600
after midnight, the logs paired the late night checks with memos.

290
00:13:58,720 --> 00:14:01,919
Four was thirteen slash footy, use our patient, restricted records only.

291
00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:05,039
It did not archive, incident, review the leadership only. It

292
00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:09,960
wasn't just forgetfulness. Then someone had been erassing, restructuring, scrubbing,

293
00:14:10,039 --> 00:14:12,600
not just finger prints, but the very identity of that floor.

294
00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:16,200
Even after all this time, I made a quick odio lock,

295
00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:19,000
whispered but insistent. Four thirteen is mask coor reading for

296
00:14:19,080 --> 00:14:21,759
something else. Maybe something happened on what used to be fourteen,

297
00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:24,679
and now it's hiding there, orver worse, somebody's still maintaining

298
00:14:24,679 --> 00:14:27,799
the fiction. Someone's here. Suddenly the lights in the record

299
00:14:27,840 --> 00:14:31,200
room flickered at twice, then again a pause. The elevator

300
00:14:31,279 --> 00:14:34,120
time echoed from the hall. I held my breath, trying

301
00:14:34,120 --> 00:14:37,039
to convince myself it was a routine test, standard maintenance.

302
00:14:37,720 --> 00:14:39,720
But then I saw the elevated doors at a far

303
00:14:39,799 --> 00:14:42,480
end slowly slid open empty car interior revealed like an

304
00:14:42,480 --> 00:14:45,720
open mouth. The panel above showed thirteen glowing softly and

305
00:14:45,759 --> 00:14:47,639
as I stared into his belief, my hand nowhere near

306
00:14:47,679 --> 00:14:50,440
the button, the clock on my phone changed one fourteen um,

307
00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:53,399
blinking then freezing. For an instant. It was the minute

308
00:14:53,399 --> 00:14:56,799
stamp to every unexplained reseet on the maintenance locks, the

309
00:14:56,840 --> 00:14:59,639
same time the badge's pink in the security nuts flight errors.

310
00:14:59,679 --> 00:15:02,799
Long after the staff had left, my refection looked up

311
00:15:02,799 --> 00:15:05,480
at me from the glossy floor, eyes wide, pulse beating

312
00:15:05,519 --> 00:15:07,360
so hard I thought the sound would call something from

313
00:15:07,399 --> 00:15:11,720
the shadows. The elevator waited, mute and beckoning. I hesitated

314
00:15:11,879 --> 00:15:14,360
the urge to step forward stronger than any rational thought,

315
00:15:14,519 --> 00:15:16,480
and only by clutching hard at the tapeer coorder in

316
00:15:16,519 --> 00:15:18,840
my pocket, my warn protection, my thin thread of proof,

317
00:15:18,879 --> 00:15:21,639
did I managed to step back, heart racing. That was

318
00:15:21,639 --> 00:15:23,799
the moment I knew things wouldn't stay quite much longer.

319
00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:27,360
Something let the elevator come for me. Someone or something

320
00:15:27,440 --> 00:15:30,159
was still keeping the thirteenth floor alive. A day or

321
00:15:30,200 --> 00:15:32,200
two passed, but the nervous pulse I brought up from

322
00:15:32,200 --> 00:15:35,000
the subassement stayed with me. It seeped into my sleep,

323
00:15:35,039 --> 00:15:37,960
turning my dream's abstract and metallic candless blank corridors, which

324
00:15:37,960 --> 00:15:40,200
air legs scraped the tiles, and patterns too precise to

325
00:15:40,240 --> 00:15:42,960
be random. When I returned for my next ship, Bill

326
00:15:43,039 --> 00:15:45,039
was gone out for a few days, according to a

327
00:15:45,080 --> 00:15:48,080
slicherd message from daytime admin. In his place squated the

328
00:15:48,159 --> 00:15:51,840
tempt guy whose handjik was clammy and brief, no eye contact,

329
00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:55,519
maybe just another soul being shuffled through the system. As

330
00:15:55,519 --> 00:15:57,679
I wrapped up the handover, I caught sight of Marizol,

331
00:15:57,759 --> 00:15:59,919
the overnight cleaner, as she lingered by the staffer room.

332
00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:03,200
She was collecting rubbish into a large plastic bag, humming

333
00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:07,440
tunelessly fall night. I tried unsure if I wanted a

334
00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:10,399
distraction or some signed. The world was still saying. Maris

335
00:16:10,399 --> 00:16:13,360
all looked up, then glads away quickly. Always is in here?

336
00:16:14,039 --> 00:16:16,080
She kept her gaze fixed on a stained patch of tile,

337
00:16:16,720 --> 00:16:20,840
her hands tightened, whitening the plastic elevator work again. I think, so,

338
00:16:21,039 --> 00:16:23,639
did you ever have to clean? Ertine? I pressed, or

339
00:16:23,679 --> 00:16:26,799
where I sounded twitchy? May be even desperate? She shook

340
00:16:26,799 --> 00:16:30,320
her head instantly, sharp and practiced no hint of curiosity. No,

341
00:16:30,559 --> 00:16:33,039
my codes don't work on that level. Just twelve Sometimes

342
00:16:33,039 --> 00:16:35,399
lobby they set its for security only for a reason.

343
00:16:35,840 --> 00:16:38,480
Before I could push for details, she scuttled away, nearly

344
00:16:38,519 --> 00:16:41,279
tripping over her cart. I was left stirring through the

345
00:16:41,279 --> 00:16:43,559
swing doors at the darkened break room, the chill from

346
00:16:43,559 --> 00:16:45,759
the lobby drift mixing with stale air of the hallway.

347
00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:49,279
When I finally clocked in, my nerves were practically vibrating.

348
00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:51,759
In the short trek from my station to the elevator,

349
00:16:51,799 --> 00:16:54,120
I checked that my phone was recording Always now cowardly

350
00:16:54,159 --> 00:16:56,480
habit upon my badge tightly enough that the plastic cut

351
00:16:56,519 --> 00:16:59,679
a faint groove into my fingers. The elevator accepted my

352
00:16:59,679 --> 00:17:02,559
badge after a moment of lack. I watched its slow

353
00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:04,680
crawl to thirteen the way. The doors fought to open,

354
00:17:04,799 --> 00:17:06,599
and as they relented, I was greeted by the oddly

355
00:17:06,599 --> 00:17:09,319
sweet chemical scent that felt stronger, almost syrupy, in the

356
00:17:09,319 --> 00:17:12,160
closed air. I set about the evening's patrol with all

357
00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:14,720
false nonchalants I could muster, determined not to let fear

358
00:17:14,759 --> 00:17:17,119
get the upper hand, But the air was about as

359
00:17:17,119 --> 00:17:19,359
calm as the lobby before fire dull heightened too. Still,

360
00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:23,039
my ears felt overtrained, catching the faintest fibration the soawmer

361
00:17:23,079 --> 00:17:25,480
grind of duckwork far away beaps a memory of laughter

362
00:17:25,559 --> 00:17:28,519
that never happened. Determined not to be out maneuvered again,

363
00:17:28,599 --> 00:17:30,480
I ran my set of little tests. Slid a binder

364
00:17:30,519 --> 00:17:32,839
and inch out from michell's edge. Slipped blue ballpoint into

365
00:17:32,839 --> 00:17:34,519
the back of some one's desk drawer, careful to know

366
00:17:34,640 --> 00:17:37,720
the fink click. Left a receipt folded into triangles atop

367
00:17:37,759 --> 00:17:40,559
a stack of an open mill. Before furnishing the round,

368
00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:43,200
I gently nudged a heavy rolling whiteboard in the conference room,

369
00:17:43,279 --> 00:17:45,200
sowed that it bracketed both the chair and the table,

370
00:17:45,240 --> 00:17:48,319
like a configuration more inconvenient than anyone would leave intentionally.

371
00:17:48,960 --> 00:17:51,039
A sense of ritual took over, as though my only

372
00:17:51,079 --> 00:17:53,680
defense against the weirdness was to claim some measure of control,

373
00:17:53,759 --> 00:17:56,319
any small assertion over the objects that insisted on moving

374
00:17:56,359 --> 00:17:59,359
behind my back. The rest of the IYRO dragged all

375
00:17:59,359 --> 00:18:02,319
false starts in false alarms. Every time I thought I

376
00:18:02,359 --> 00:18:04,319
caught a movement from the corner of my eye, I'd

377
00:18:04,359 --> 00:18:06,960
pivot too quickly, hot pounding, only to see a printer's

378
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:09,079
blinking stand by light or the mirror double of my

379
00:18:09,079 --> 00:18:11,440
own reflection, cutting the course of row of dormant screens.

380
00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:14,240
Back in the control room, I called up the feed

381
00:18:14,240 --> 00:18:17,559
from every camera pointed at four thirteen. Each monitorsured the

382
00:18:17,599 --> 00:18:20,960
beak gross bry cubicle grid. Not a chair shifted, not

383
00:18:21,039 --> 00:18:23,880
a shadow lingered. The cup from before was gone to night,

384
00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:26,279
replaced by a Nietzsche for printed forms that hadn't been

385
00:18:26,319 --> 00:18:28,640
their last shift, each with date fields left just barely

386
00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:31,200
and complete, teasing the notion of work never quite finished.

387
00:18:31,920 --> 00:18:34,160
For a while, I sat in that bluish monitor glow,

388
00:18:34,319 --> 00:18:36,559
hands clasped tight, as if my knuckles could squeeze out

389
00:18:36,599 --> 00:18:39,079
what the screens refused to reveal. A part of me

390
00:18:39,160 --> 00:18:41,359
wondered why I kept coming back, Why I wasn't content

391
00:18:41,400 --> 00:18:44,200
to lock my rounds and leave the oddities alone. Maybe

392
00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:46,359
everyone before me had reached the same breaking point. A

393
00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:49,319
tipping agere denial gave weight to stubborn urge to prove yourself.

394
00:18:49,400 --> 00:18:52,119
Right about half way through my shift, a faint scraping

395
00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:54,799
echoed from the corridor. My seat creaked under me as

396
00:18:54,839 --> 00:18:57,240
I stood, hoping foolishly that it was nothing but a

397
00:18:57,240 --> 00:19:00,160
settling noise. But as I stepped into the hallway, free

398
00:19:00,160 --> 00:19:02,880
footstep broadcast and two louds to cutto the noise stopped.

399
00:19:03,480 --> 00:19:06,960
I waited, forcing myself to listen, to really listen. The silence,

400
00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:10,079
once so comforting, now seemed like a smother. When I

401
00:19:10,160 --> 00:19:12,640
rounded the bend into the far conference room, the whiteboard

402
00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:14,920
sat in perfect parallel with the wall, a chair neatly

403
00:19:14,960 --> 00:19:18,720
slotted beneath on the table top. My folded receipt had disappeared.

404
00:19:19,279 --> 00:19:21,319
A nod vowed to go swept through me. I leaned down,

405
00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:23,440
checking under the table for the lost scrap of paper,

406
00:19:23,440 --> 00:19:27,079
brief ridiculous hope it might have simply slipped to the floor. Instead,

407
00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:29,640
I found Dussa's carpet, a faint line in the fibers,

408
00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:32,000
as if something or someone had dragged their fingertips through it.

409
00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:37,359
Frustration crepin jostling with fascination, I muttered, all right, you're clever,

410
00:19:37,440 --> 00:19:40,400
but you're not invisible. I stood and scanned the empty,

411
00:19:40,440 --> 00:19:43,720
too bright room, my words swallowed by acoustic tile. If

412
00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:45,559
you are a night manager, you win. I give up,

413
00:19:46,119 --> 00:19:48,319
But even after saying it, some animal part of me

414
00:19:48,359 --> 00:19:51,440
refused to believe the game was finished. The building didn't

415
00:19:51,519 --> 00:19:55,160
let anyone win, not in the ordinary sense. Eventually, with

416
00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:57,640
little else to pursue that round. I sat back down

417
00:19:57,680 --> 00:19:59,359
at the control bank and prodded my way into the

418
00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:01,519
buildings till back when a back of menu left open

419
00:20:01,519 --> 00:20:04,079
by board, I t text lawn before my time. With

420
00:20:04,240 --> 00:20:06,519
enough patients, I found what I was looking for, an

421
00:20:06,519 --> 00:20:09,319
interface for the card access system. One lock after another's

422
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:14,279
wipes failures forced entries, scheduled lockouts once again. Fourth their

423
00:20:14,319 --> 00:20:16,400
team was the only sector to list as an assigned.

424
00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:19,720
Trying to drill into the history merely spat back a warning.

425
00:20:20,279 --> 00:20:22,839
Even route access failed to produce logs on that sector's

426
00:20:22,880 --> 00:20:25,519
doors between the iOS of midnight and five a m.

427
00:20:25,720 --> 00:20:28,240
Further digging in old emails on the system uncovered a

428
00:20:28,279 --> 00:20:30,720
string of tickets flight for a hardware set four fourteen

429
00:20:30,799 --> 00:20:34,400
sensors shuffled among request about water coolers and flickering overheads

430
00:20:35,119 --> 00:20:37,839
sence a confusion between floors one admin and entry read

431
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:40,759
time stamp Midwin two years ago request all that of

432
00:20:40,759 --> 00:20:44,240
badge validation for legacy sector. No further staff reassignment until

433
00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:47,839
resolved priority low. Of course that met management didn't worry,

434
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:49,680
but they knew pretending not to would keep the real

435
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:52,559
problem at arm's length. A surge of resolve replaced my

436
00:20:52,599 --> 00:20:56,000
earlier knees. Clicking through to the digital archive, I compiled

437
00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:59,119
the folder of every relevant foul cryptic maintenance logs, badge

438
00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:01,599
record screen shuts a photo of the directory, missing it

439
00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:04,640
to the teen and fourteen listings. My own private evidence

440
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:08,000
dash growing chunk by chunk. I copied it off site,

441
00:21:08,039 --> 00:21:10,359
emailing it to an encrypted address I'd made just in case.

442
00:21:11,279 --> 00:21:14,279
Like any whistleblow fantasy, it felt brave in small doses

443
00:21:14,279 --> 00:21:17,440
and desperately paranoid in the cold midnight eyurs. The last

444
00:21:17,440 --> 00:21:19,519
half of my shift always felt warp A clock's too

445
00:21:19,519 --> 00:21:22,720
slow and the office light flickering off sequence. I find

446
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:25,319
myself for trees in my rounds, eachly reinforcing how the

447
00:21:25,359 --> 00:21:28,319
space seemed designed to erase memory. Once I found a

448
00:21:28,359 --> 00:21:30,440
note to myself, my own shake is scripped towards behind

449
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:33,079
the monitor in the security office. Don't forget what changed.

450
00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:36,640
I couldn't remember writing it. At the end of that shift,

451
00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:39,880
fatigue pressed against my eyes like wet towels. I checked

452
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:42,839
the security phone, no miscolls. Just as I went to

453
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:45,680
shut everything down, a note for cation pained fall restored

454
00:21:45,759 --> 00:21:49,279
it said, I thumbed the screen the time stemp showed

455
00:21:49,319 --> 00:21:53,039
one fourteen again that minute. Besides his surgery, the restored

456
00:21:53,079 --> 00:21:56,200
file was an audio clip three seconds long. I played

457
00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:59,319
it silence for two beats, thin, a frictional, drawn out

458
00:21:59,319 --> 00:22:02,559
exhal followed by a whisper You're almost there, allan. I

459
00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:05,279
dropped the phone, pulse biking. There was nobody in the

460
00:22:05,279 --> 00:22:07,839
building that used my name on tape, not unless someone know,

461
00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:10,960
not unless something was listening for me. Every night, in

462
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:13,240
a break room at dawn, I nursed too hot coffee,

463
00:22:13,319 --> 00:22:15,519
staring at the blank wall while red smears from the

464
00:22:15,519 --> 00:22:18,559
sunrise bled through the lobby windows. For a moment, the

465
00:22:18,559 --> 00:22:21,839
building felt utterly normal, stacked with glass and aluminum, stale biscuits,

466
00:22:21,839 --> 00:22:23,960
and a jar the remains of a half finished crossword

467
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:26,079
in the corner. But as I suit to leave, I

468
00:22:26,119 --> 00:22:28,720
spotted my penny, the one I'd left in the cubicles earlier.

469
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:31,559
It sat on the edge of the staff sink, tails up,

470
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:33,799
perfectly cindered, and just for a second, a swore. The

471
00:22:33,839 --> 00:22:36,000
air by the elevators was colder, as if the building

472
00:22:36,039 --> 00:22:39,039
itself was holding its breath. After a sleep that barely

473
00:22:39,119 --> 00:22:41,440
took I texted a college friend who worked outy for

474
00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:44,880
another contract security firm. You ever see buildings jugose floors,

475
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:48,319
map skips, hidden locks, He called me back instantly, voice

476
00:22:48,359 --> 00:22:51,839
crackling with anxious energy. Man, there's a bunch of buildings

477
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:55,160
like that, old capital state, financial places with mergers or biots.

478
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:57,599
Most justlyse a floor in the books, but sometimes I

479
00:22:57,640 --> 00:23:00,160
hear stores about places where the logs keep people catting

480
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:02,599
or referencing dead tenants. You get flagged for poking a

481
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:05,680
round too much, though I hesitated, not sure how much

482
00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:08,680
to say. What would happen if someone kept resating everything,

483
00:23:08,799 --> 00:23:11,480
like moving stuff, erasing badge and just so nobody could

484
00:23:11,519 --> 00:23:14,480
ever confirm someone's been there. But don't mess with those files, Allen.

485
00:23:14,519 --> 00:23:16,920
They'll lock you out. Worst, they'll loop you in, keep

486
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:19,519
sending you the same looks over and over until you

487
00:23:19,599 --> 00:23:22,960
start seeing them everywhere. He stopped breathing into the mic,

488
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:26,720
then asked you, okay, A fine? I lied, just curious,

489
00:23:26,759 --> 00:23:29,920
Thanks for the warning. After that, I became extra careful.

490
00:23:30,599 --> 00:23:33,440
I changed my coat passwords every night, watched for phantom

491
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:35,920
badge pings in the system, memorized where I left things,

492
00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:39,039
and kept mental talents of every anomaly. Days blowed one

493
00:23:39,039 --> 00:23:41,960
into the next bagels and invoices and aching feet mocking time,

494
00:23:42,559 --> 00:23:45,640
but each if the thirteen four waited, sometimes pitient, sometimes

495
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:47,880
with the faint scent of new coffee drifting down the stairwell,

496
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:50,680
and seen and uninvited. One night I set up a

497
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:53,279
secret camera, the kind used for wildlife, disguised as an

498
00:23:53,319 --> 00:23:55,759
air freshener, just inside the conference room, trained on the

499
00:23:55,759 --> 00:23:58,799
most active zone from misplaced objects. I angled it to

500
00:23:58,799 --> 00:24:00,799
catch both door and white balls, sink the time with

501
00:24:00,839 --> 00:24:02,799
my fallon, set the camera to send a silent pin

502
00:24:02,839 --> 00:24:05,880
if triggered midshift. As I was cycling through camera feeds,

503
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:08,920
my phone vibrated emotion aller. The live feed from the

504
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:12,359
wildlife cam came through Garble Street with static, I could

505
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,559
barely make out the furniture. Then, for a full second

506
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:17,759
the screen cleared, I caught the briefest flicker of movement,

507
00:24:17,759 --> 00:24:20,039
A desk chair rotating by itself in a jerky puppet

508
00:24:20,079 --> 00:24:23,000
like motion, stopping halfward to face the window. A penny

509
00:24:23,079 --> 00:24:25,680
lay spinning on the corner of the table and probably balanced.

510
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:28,720
No one else was visible, no shadows to blame, yet

511
00:24:28,759 --> 00:24:31,200
the room's configuration were set before my eyes. Whiteboard back

512
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:33,440
at the wall chair tucked in, the table top wiped clean.

513
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:37,359
I played the recording back twice, three times. Each time

514
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:39,559
I swore the room seem fractionally different, as though the

515
00:24:39,599 --> 00:24:42,960
video itself was rewriting the space. By the fourth playback,

516
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:44,920
a penny had vanished, and in its place was a

517
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:46,720
folded slip of a child let ahead with my own

518
00:24:46,759 --> 00:24:49,279
name typed or courtly at the top. When I paused

519
00:24:49,279 --> 00:24:51,559
to double check the timestamp, the fowl crashed and the

520
00:24:51,559 --> 00:24:55,400
cameras as decar corrupted Instantly after that, my nerves ran

521
00:24:55,519 --> 00:24:58,279
ragged as a weather strip. Every shift, I expected to

522
00:24:58,279 --> 00:25:00,880
walk in and find the world entirely REALI, with nobody

523
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:04,200
else the wiser. The next morning, I called building management directly,

524
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:07,839
using an anonymous tip line. There are recurring issues. One thirteen.

525
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:10,680
I began disguising my voice with a cough. Physical objects

526
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:13,519
out of place, unexplained to sets, mirrors that don't map

527
00:25:13,559 --> 00:25:17,000
to real movement. The voice in the other end was smooth, practiced,

528
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:20,119
Thank you for your concern. Off facilities are maintained to

529
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,440
industry standards. If you wish to submit a formal claim,

530
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:25,359
please provide your name and employee. I d I hesitated,

531
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:27,799
then hung up. There would be no help from above

532
00:25:28,519 --> 00:25:30,960
that day. In a moment of rashness, I printed every

533
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:34,240
filic at stomach maintenance tickets, old old it lock's security

534
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:36,799
badge patterns my own instant note, stuffing the stack into

535
00:25:36,799 --> 00:25:39,680
my messenger bag under a library but dust jacket. My

536
00:25:39,759 --> 00:25:42,400
plan was to leave Coppice with my friend off company property.

537
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,039
When I reached the Plausa that evening, hussing for wind

538
00:25:45,079 --> 00:25:47,279
that seemed to slice off the building's mirrored edge, I

539
00:25:47,319 --> 00:25:49,640
found my friend waiting in the sandwhich shop, white eyed,

540
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:52,319
tromming his fingers on the table. You look like kel,

541
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:55,519
he said. And your phone keeps calling my number at night.

542
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:57,599
I wake up at one fourteen and there's just that

543
00:25:57,680 --> 00:25:59,960
dead air, like someone breathing on the line. He messing

544
00:26:00,079 --> 00:26:02,440
with me. I shook my head, trying and failing to

545
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:05,599
maintain a smile. Something's wrong in that building. I think

546
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:08,200
they hit a floor or are hiding something that happened there.

547
00:26:08,799 --> 00:26:11,160
He looked at the stack of papers, leafing three dates

548
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:14,000
and blurry, grainy print outs. The longer he read, the

549
00:26:14,039 --> 00:26:16,880
paler he got. Don't put my name on this stuff.

550
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:18,680
Look if what you found is real, you need to

551
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:21,160
drop it people lose their jobs or worse, forget why

552
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:23,359
they were there in the first place. I left the

553
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:26,319
stack with him, grateful and sick at heart, returning to

554
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:28,880
my shift, swirling thoughts about job prospects and did him

555
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:30,799
risking a black mark on my record pinched at me.

556
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:33,359
I nearly clocked up before my shift even started, but

557
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:35,839
again I found my feet turning back toward the elevator.

558
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,599
I pressed the badge resigned. This night, only the thirteen

559
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,720
flickered once, then stilled waiting for me. Riding up, the

560
00:26:42,759 --> 00:26:45,759
air was almost suffocatingly close, and as the elevator rose,

561
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:48,279
I noticed another oddity of the floor. Indicato skipped twelfth

562
00:26:48,279 --> 00:26:50,200
and jerked directly to the teen with a double blink,

563
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,160
too fast, like a skipped heartbeat. The minute I set

564
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:55,559
foot on to the thirteenth floor, my breath drew in shallow.

565
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:59,440
Something had changed. A staleness clung to the carpet, heavy

566
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:01,440
and thick, as if no one had brethed fresh air

567
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:04,599
through here all week. The familiar grid of furniture appeared

568
00:27:04,599 --> 00:27:07,680
slightly blurred, as if seen through water. When I passed

569
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:10,039
the kitchenette, the coffee pot was not just full, but scalding.

570
00:27:10,039 --> 00:27:12,960
The glass pots steamed, droplets of condensation jittering on the burner.

571
00:27:13,559 --> 00:27:16,400
Another cup, pressed into its branded cardboard sleeve, stood on

572
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:18,920
the table, palet stained with an old print lipstick, just

573
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,880
visible in the yellow light. I forced myself to circle

574
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:24,119
the floor, marking checkpoints with the heavy bitten end of

575
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:26,680
my pen. In a second row of cubicles, I found

576
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:29,480
a binder, one of those ancient battered office types, stamped

577
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:32,400
with the faded blue logo of the developer. Inside print

578
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:34,759
teps of old employee rosters from over a decade ago,

579
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:37,880
all stamped do not remove. Most names were familiar from

580
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:40,079
the property's history, but others had been crossed through a

581
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:42,799
heavy black marker ink bled through the paper and angry lines.

582
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,039
Each crossed out entry was appended with the handwriten note

583
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:49,839
not cleared, a resigned, not transferred, a c incident fourteen B.

584
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:53,799
Faint music drifted through the vents, an odd whole tune, sung,

585
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:57,119
eshpipe and buzzy. I caught my head following it through

586
00:27:57,119 --> 00:28:00,160
the blind spots between glass and breakout rooms. The sun

587
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:03,160
always backed away, never growing clearer, a marote of melody.

588
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:05,640
My skin prickled with the sense that The music was

589
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:08,119
only ever cover for something heavier looking behind it, a

590
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:11,079
coded message I couldn't decode. On a whim, I decided

591
00:28:11,079 --> 00:28:12,839
to run the desk phone for a direct dial out

592
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:15,680
of the building. The only number programmed into the shortcut

593
00:28:15,759 --> 00:28:18,480
directory was a string labeled to fourteen main con r M.

594
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:22,000
I pressed it. The hand shat shurled once, then filled

595
00:28:22,039 --> 00:28:24,000
my ear with the same souper silence that haunted my

596
00:28:24,039 --> 00:28:25,799
feron at night, and not quiet that seemed to ache

597
00:28:25,799 --> 00:28:28,240
for a voice to break it. Nobody picked up, but

598
00:28:28,319 --> 00:28:31,759
after twenty seconds a recorded prompt began colitching and snapped,

599
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,000
you have reached the crisis response line. If you are

600
00:28:34,039 --> 00:28:36,480
not staff, return to your assigned area. If you are staff,

601
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:38,559
of the message cut harsh stat crushing in to fill

602
00:28:38,559 --> 00:28:41,839
the gap. It repeated twice, then ended as abruptly as

603
00:28:41,839 --> 00:28:44,880
it had begun. That cryptic warning reinforced what the files

604
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:47,759
kept circuitously hinting, not just an accident, but cover up,

605
00:28:47,759 --> 00:28:50,240
a program to make people forget, to keep people from noticing,

606
00:28:50,359 --> 00:28:53,279
or perhaps both. As my shift tacked toward two eight M,

607
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:55,519
I gave up on softl DY, resolving to warp the

608
00:28:55,519 --> 00:28:58,039
floor in reverse order stopping at every glass wall and

609
00:28:58,039 --> 00:29:00,559
studying my own reflection, looking not for myself, but for

610
00:29:00,599 --> 00:29:03,559
any movement out of time. With my steps, the reflections

611
00:29:03,559 --> 00:29:05,799
all trailed half a beat behind, like a slight echo

612
00:29:05,799 --> 00:29:08,400
in the image, every angle, a tiny registration error, as

613
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:11,160
if the glass itself was keeping its own memory. Rand.

614
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:13,640
In a corner toward the side hallway, I suddenly came

615
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,319
face to face with Mike, the day maintenance supervisor, the

616
00:29:16,359 --> 00:29:18,680
guy whose word was lower in the hardware room. He

617
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:21,720
stood in them, moving dark, hand stuffed into his overall pockets.

618
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:24,759
Didn't expect to see you hear this late, I said,

619
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:27,720
after swallowing a jump. Mike stared at the ground, then

620
00:29:27,799 --> 00:29:30,480
up at the ceiling, was quiet. You shouldn't be up

621
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:32,640
here every night. They tell us it's for our own good.

622
00:29:32,759 --> 00:29:37,319
They who management or someone else along sigh? It does

623
00:29:37,359 --> 00:29:40,799
it matter? Every so often somebody gets ambitious, pokes around

624
00:29:40,799 --> 00:29:43,680
the old logs, asks about four fourteen building, always resetts

625
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:45,920
like it never happened. We do what the tickets say,

626
00:29:46,079 --> 00:29:49,000
and then everyone skips a day. I peered past him,

627
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:51,480
more nervous than angry. Now did you know about the

628
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:54,680
fake h R binders? The weird logs. Mike's lips twitch,

629
00:29:54,759 --> 00:29:58,000
possibly a smile. Nothing in his building matches the logs.

630
00:29:58,039 --> 00:30:01,079
Don't try to reconcile it. That's my vice. He turned

631
00:30:01,079 --> 00:30:02,759
to leave, but before he did, he had as a

632
00:30:02,759 --> 00:30:06,640
parting shot, you keep finding stuff, you'll start misplacing memories too.

633
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,319
When he was gone, the silence felt doubly thick. I

634
00:30:10,359 --> 00:30:12,960
traced my run to the stairwell, somehow, needing the reassurance

635
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:15,119
that the building retained at least one escape route not

636
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:19,079
subject to an electrical glitch. At the landing, I paused, thoughtful,

637
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:21,519
wondering how many rounds I'd actually made that night. What

638
00:30:21,599 --> 00:30:23,319
time I watch would really show if I walked out

639
00:30:23,359 --> 00:30:26,559
into the dawn. Sometimes I imagined all the clocks in

640
00:30:26,599 --> 00:30:28,839
the place ticked to a different schedule, one written into

641
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,440
the wiring by whoever designed it, for secrets above all else.

642
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:34,559
I made one last pass by the conference room, scanning

643
00:30:34,599 --> 00:30:37,640
the desks, the phones, the silent monitors. I didn't go

644
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:41,480
in the next night, not at once. Instead, I sat

645
00:30:41,519 --> 00:30:44,000
at home, replaying the footage from the secret camera. The

646
00:30:44,039 --> 00:30:45,960
sound of my own blood rushing louder than any real

647
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,640
noise in the clip, But the longer I watched the enter.

648
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:52,359
The images grew, frame staggering, cheers, benning received folding and unfolding,

649
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,160
as if the camera couldn't decide what it remembered. I

650
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:58,200
caught myself mouthing words at the screen, asking what happened here,

651
00:30:58,240 --> 00:30:59,960
as if an answer might break out and spill form.

652
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:04,319
But absence nags harder than presents. After a restless day

653
00:31:04,359 --> 00:31:06,240
and a nap that left my mind muddy, I found

654
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:09,000
myself back in the uniform, lacing black shoes by reflex

655
00:31:09,119 --> 00:31:11,960
badge inside my jacket. Nothing about the evening should have

656
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:14,480
belonged to routine, not with what naught at me, that

657
00:31:14,559 --> 00:31:17,519
confusion of evidence piling up in the digital dark. But

658
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:19,720
some animal part of me wanted to walk the floor again,

659
00:31:19,759 --> 00:31:22,079
to press closer, be nearer to truth. Whatever lay at

660
00:31:22,079 --> 00:31:26,440
its heart, habit or compulsion, I'm honestly not sure. On

661
00:31:26,559 --> 00:31:30,240
that commute, the city's outlines wavered. Car headlights blurred in

662
00:31:30,279 --> 00:31:32,720
the rain, reflecting off the slick streets in the vast

663
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:35,920
arched lobby windows. Every time I caught my reflection, I

664
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:38,359
looked like a man rehearsing a confession, mouth set, eyes

665
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:41,279
ringed by fatigue. I couldn't blame Mumpo. Sleep alone. I

666
00:31:41,319 --> 00:31:43,839
gripped my satchel tighter at the thin packet of files inside,

667
00:31:43,839 --> 00:31:46,599
making me self conscious, an invitation to drop everything and run,

668
00:31:47,079 --> 00:31:49,119
even in the elevator up from the parking garage, A

669
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:51,519
brace for the intercome's mutic greeting. Half waited for the

670
00:31:51,519 --> 00:31:55,000
stupid to ding that meant a human voice, something regular. Instead,

671
00:31:55,119 --> 00:31:58,000
the speaker only hissed an indiscriminate static only I seemed

672
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:00,359
to notice. When I reached the skies. You were to

673
00:32:00,359 --> 00:32:02,279
desk in the lobby, A scan for bilot, a force

674
00:32:02,319 --> 00:32:05,880
of habit. The nightman's absence left a necker. In his

675
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:08,559
place was an older janitor, white paddle truck, capal too

676
00:32:08,599 --> 00:32:10,759
low over the face, stacking bins by the mail drop.

677
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:13,319
He looked at me once, then away with a sort

678
00:32:13,359 --> 00:32:16,039
of veiled apology. What are you working on to night?

679
00:32:16,839 --> 00:32:19,880
I tried, gently, voice quiet enough for only us. The

680
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,440
janitor shook his head, chin barely tilting up from his hull.

681
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:27,240
Nothing nothing worth saying. Then risking a fast glance my way,

682
00:32:27,279 --> 00:32:29,359
he added, don't stay too late to night. People don't

683
00:32:29,359 --> 00:32:32,359
come back right after they start talking. That haunted inflection

684
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:34,200
stuck with me on the short, anxious walk to the

685
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:37,799
staff elevators. Ilk crawled along my shoulders as I badged

686
00:32:37,799 --> 00:32:39,880
in waited for the soft old talk of the elevator.

687
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:43,400
Really only the one floor illuminated again fifteen A sullen

688
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:46,240
waiting invitation, I brought a fresh roll of film for

689
00:32:46,279 --> 00:32:48,720
the secret camera with me, plus my phone, and wore

690
00:32:48,799 --> 00:32:51,319
my recording device soperly, now more for my own faith

691
00:32:51,359 --> 00:32:53,599
than any real hope a manager might one day Rebut

692
00:32:54,359 --> 00:32:56,279
before the doors opened, I snapped a pho door of

693
00:32:56,279 --> 00:32:58,680
the panel in the time twelve fifty three a m.

694
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,640
As always the eleve Vader's travel felt liquid and inserta

695
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:03,920
like had drawn out instant dream that never quite landed.

696
00:33:04,519 --> 00:33:07,000
The thirteenth four let me out with almost no ceremony,

697
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:09,440
just the dull swipe of electrostatic keys and a second

698
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:11,960
or two of dead air. The sen had changed, more

699
00:33:12,039 --> 00:33:15,960
chemical undercurrent, less lemon It was closer to ammonia and sharper,

700
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:18,359
as if something stronger had been sprayed the earlier in the night.

701
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:21,079
I walked the rout i'd memorizer past the alcoves and

702
00:33:21,079 --> 00:33:24,960
cubical glurid conference room blasts, kitchenet light flickering with steady monotony.

703
00:33:25,519 --> 00:33:27,680
I let my hand drift across the carpeted wall terrain,

704
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:30,599
checking for finger prints. This was gone, but there was

705
00:33:30,599 --> 00:33:32,960
a smeared handprint on the supply room door, smudge that

706
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:36,079
looked oily darker than the finish. This time I came

707
00:33:36,079 --> 00:33:38,319
prepared for direct evidence. I carried my phone in my

708
00:33:38,359 --> 00:33:40,920
Palm camap open, snapping quick shots as I worked through

709
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:44,599
the disc aills slow and deliberate. Nearly every desk look staged,

710
00:33:45,359 --> 00:33:47,599
some with yelling post is fluttering in the tendrils of

711
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:50,039
the AH track, others with pens arranged and patterns I

712
00:33:50,079 --> 00:33:53,200
could almost but not quite make sense of. On one screen,

713
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:55,880
left in sleep mode, a lavender glow captured something that

714
00:33:56,039 --> 00:33:58,960
was wrong. The laptop technant and out of logum mode

715
00:33:59,319 --> 00:34:02,119
once twice. Then without warning, it snapped to a pulsing logo.

716
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,039
I recognized the company font, but not the name four

717
00:34:05,079 --> 00:34:09,239
fourteen Holdings LC Welcome. I tried the keyboard to wake it. Nothing.

718
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:13,039
It was unplugged, no battery, a ghost boot, if such

719
00:34:13,079 --> 00:34:15,800
a thing existed. I knelt close and looked beneath the

720
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:19,480
plastic in one far corner, nearly hidden beneath smeared white o.

721
00:34:19,639 --> 00:34:21,960
Someone had etched a quick response code into the plastic.

722
00:34:22,639 --> 00:34:24,840
My hand shook as I started my phone scanner, app

723
00:34:25,039 --> 00:34:27,199
needing proof that it wasn't a hallucination brought on by

724
00:34:27,199 --> 00:34:30,119
in the shifts and broken sleep. The phone camera read

725
00:34:30,119 --> 00:34:33,000
the code. The link was old, at first a dead page,

726
00:34:33,039 --> 00:34:36,920
then a redirected window. Suddenly an ancient HR portal flickered open.

727
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:39,239
The brows are warning of a security certificate from half

728
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:43,119
a generation ago. The page was labeled only Crisis Response Materials,

729
00:34:43,159 --> 00:34:45,760
Floor fourteen, and then, to my surprise, a streaming, grainy

730
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:48,239
video of them milhovered titled test foot of June twenty

731
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:50,719
two on the digital log. The date looked like it

732
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:54,000
belonged a decade behind us. I tapped and held my breath.

733
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:56,440
The video buffered a grain silky over the frameman. Then

734
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:58,840
a room flashed up, familiar to the point of nausea.

735
00:34:59,559 --> 00:35:02,320
Same it, same walls, except the lighting was blue cast

736
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:04,320
in the faces, and the frame flitted by too quickly.

737
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:07,119
A blur of people around a conference table, their movements

738
00:35:07,119 --> 00:35:10,039
frantic lips moving, but sound muted. At the bottom of

739
00:35:10,079 --> 00:35:12,719
the feet white block text read fourteen flour secure conference,

740
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:16,199
instant live response, and beneath a line of legal lease,

741
00:35:16,559 --> 00:35:20,480
no circulations, lash return, all badges, legs trembling. I scanned

742
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:22,599
the rest of the floor, half expecting every image to

743
00:35:22,599 --> 00:35:25,400
resolve into an old memory. It felt like evidence or

744
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:28,119
a threat. I snapped photos of the QUA code and

745
00:35:28,199 --> 00:35:31,119
locked the page, careful not to linger too long. I

746
00:35:31,199 --> 00:35:33,559
begun to suspect the building had its own sensors, some

747
00:35:33,679 --> 00:35:37,280
network spider lurking in the wiring, itself back in a corridor,

748
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:39,960
Leaning into the note beside the supply closet, I waited.

749
00:35:40,599 --> 00:35:43,239
The iron hand crept closer to one. It was up.

750
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:45,840
Moments like that, waiting, nerves fray skin show that unplanned

751
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:49,800
things happened. A low word, the building's breathing, shifting near

752
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:52,039
the elevator, A sliver of movements just beyond the wall

753
00:35:52,079 --> 00:35:55,039
of glass. A slender figure hunched at the panel, pressing

754
00:35:55,079 --> 00:35:58,000
buttons like it needed somewhat to go. The elevator didn't

755
00:35:58,039 --> 00:36:01,000
come for them, or maybe a re There was no

756
00:36:01,039 --> 00:36:03,360
real figure at all, just a reflection or the impression

757
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:05,960
of one. The building locking in its old routines. I

758
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:08,440
pressed on toward the far end passed the kitchenette again,

759
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:11,800
and there a flicker of motion. A coffee cup rim steaming,

760
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,079
sat atop a neatly fanned collection of executive folders. But

761
00:36:15,199 --> 00:36:19,400
this time something had changed. On the whiteboard. Illegible diagrams

762
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:22,679
filled half the space, spirals, department floatsharts, badge numbers that

763
00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:25,119
seemed plausible in the globe but never matched the current date.

764
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,199
Through the glass, I saw someone else, know not some

765
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:31,000
one else, A cleaner, so I thought. At first, he

766
00:36:31,039 --> 00:36:33,360
looked up at my approach, eyes wide, face fixed as

767
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:35,199
if caught in the act of delving where he shouldn't.

768
00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:38,119
For an instant, our gaze is locked, then averted, each

769
00:36:38,159 --> 00:36:41,320
of us seeing the others possible threat. Hey you really

770
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:45,400
work here, I said, pushing the nervousness downward. Not my job,

771
00:36:45,559 --> 00:36:47,440
this for I. I came for the fir a mop.

772
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:50,679
He glanced at the closet. They don't let us up here,

773
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:52,920
not after what happened before. They won't let it go.

774
00:36:53,079 --> 00:36:55,840
We just try to leave it be. I set my voice, gentle,

775
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:59,679
weary but seeking connection. What's here to leave? He shook

776
00:36:59,679 --> 00:37:02,440
his head, panic rising. It's not for me to say.

777
00:37:02,559 --> 00:37:04,400
They move things back if you touch them, we just

778
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:06,679
mop what we can and go. Sometimes we hear the

779
00:37:06,679 --> 00:37:09,559
copying machine after iOS. But when you go look his

780
00:37:09,639 --> 00:37:12,840
words cut off, eyes darting toward the closest tixt a

781
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:16,239
distant thing registered from the elevator. Both of us looked.

782
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,639
No one stepped up, the cleaner about his head. You

783
00:37:19,679 --> 00:37:21,920
didn't hear this, he muttered, and hurried away with a

784
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:24,360
speed that made my hot jolt. The air in the

785
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:27,159
corridor promptly thickened, clotted by the sire scent, and the

786
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:30,440
quiet heavy enough to register as intent. I worked for

787
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:33,199
another half ire, running patents, shifting chairs a few inches

788
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:35,440
at a time, opening draws, a penny in one a pen,

789
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:37,480
and another a tiny sliver of tape over the edge

790
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:40,639
of the conference table. Every pattern would be checked next round,

791
00:37:40,679 --> 00:37:44,639
ever disturbance, a tiny dare. Nothing moved, but the feeling

792
00:37:44,679 --> 00:37:47,239
grew the weight of being watched. I caught my own

793
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:49,679
affliction now and then in glass shaped behind it, seeming

794
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:52,559
to linger a shadow echo of office life never quite dissolved.

795
00:37:53,199 --> 00:37:56,599
Without warning, my phone buzzed. The call O idea was blank,

796
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:01,719
I answered, careful, saying security Allen speaking, I'm mangled underwater

797
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:04,679
tone answered, stop asking for your own sake, not everything

798
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:07,599
is yours to know. The call ended without pause for reply,

799
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:11,000
a sharp click, the automated kind, not a human's, but

800
00:38:11,079 --> 00:38:14,360
closer to a machine switching off. I stood there, stirring

801
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:16,719
at the phone, thinking maybe my hands were shaking because

802
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:19,719
I wanted to believe in rational explanations. At that point

803
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:22,840
I made up my mind more bitterness than bravery. I

804
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:25,719
would stay through the witching. I stay with my recording device,

805
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:28,440
running document what I could as it happened, if anything happened.

806
00:38:29,119 --> 00:38:31,039
Not as a challenge any more, but as a kind

807
00:38:31,039 --> 00:38:33,960
of surrender. At twelve thirty, I turned off the main

808
00:38:34,039 --> 00:38:36,480
lights and set myself up behind the lobby glass body

809
00:38:36,519 --> 00:38:38,480
hidden from the doors but facing the largest part of

810
00:38:38,519 --> 00:38:41,760
the open plan cubicle grid. I ran an external microphone

811
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:44,280
to pick up ambient noise, jet battery status, press record

812
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:47,519
the iro between midnight and one stretched. Every second, every

813
00:38:47,519 --> 00:38:50,119
scrape as loud as a clap. I must have yonder

814
00:38:50,119 --> 00:38:51,880
oor blinked too long for As the digital clock on

815
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:53,920
my phone ticked to one seven a m, I heard

816
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,760
a clear metallic Snicodesth's chair turning behind my field of view.

817
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:00,800
My breath caught here we go, I whispered out of ideas.

818
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:03,400
The next few minutes played out as a slow motion,

819
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:06,119
hazed furniture creaking, a hum of air rising and dipping,

820
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:08,519
lights clicking off one by one, and then surging back.

821
00:39:09,159 --> 00:39:11,519
I could have sworn the entire arrangement of the cubicle

822
00:39:11,559 --> 00:39:13,760
shifted in the corner of my eye like a chess board.

823
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:17,639
After a mismove. I looked away, then back. A traska

824
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:20,760
rolled an inch, hitting the file cabinet somewhere it just

825
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:23,039
won twice in stop, square on to the window, not

826
00:39:23,159 --> 00:39:25,960
at its earlier angle. Then the stranger thing, a burst

827
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:28,559
of overlapping voices, almost as though a crowd had entered

828
00:39:28,599 --> 00:39:31,280
the brick room all at once. I pressed my ear

829
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:34,119
to the microphone, cautious, but the pitch was wrung too quick,

830
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,840
too frantic, timeless. I slipped deeper, just at the line

831
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:40,440
of the main corridor, hot thumping, and stared straight into

832
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:43,519
the conference room. Inside. At the lawn table, a coffee

833
00:39:43,519 --> 00:39:46,360
cup steamed fresh as if poured only seconds ago. The

834
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:48,039
handle turned in were the cup at a place no

835
00:39:48,119 --> 00:39:51,000
one sat in front of an open binder. I approached,

836
00:39:51,119 --> 00:39:53,559
legs carried over with fear. The air in the room

837
00:39:53,599 --> 00:39:56,000
fell charred, as though an old argument shivered just out

838
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:58,960
of hearing. Papers lit at the table, blotched with faded

839
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,159
logos and signatures that meant nothing. Now. As I looked

840
00:40:02,599 --> 00:40:04,679
one sheet stirred, turned by a draft that should not

841
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:07,639
have existed, I let my hand fall on at Incident Report,

842
00:40:07,639 --> 00:40:11,119
do not Circulate four fourteen Conference. Read the header, I

843
00:40:11,159 --> 00:40:14,000
forced myself to open the binder in the front pocket

844
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:16,400
sumped an id batch, crusted and brown at the edge,

845
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:18,440
the old logo and poto half rubbed out by time.

846
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:22,360
The Namery Tarborough Facilities executive match neither roster nor present

847
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,159
staff list. The date of issue was ten years past.

848
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:28,280
Therefore a number on its block stamped fourteen. As my

849
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:30,840
pulse thundered, I heard a distinct step, a slow rolling

850
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:33,320
drag of a heel on carpet. For a moment I

851
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:35,360
was sure I saw the movement reflected in the glass,

852
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:37,960
an arrow figure of stylis shoes striding in a calm,

853
00:40:38,159 --> 00:40:42,239
managerial gait. Behind that, another smallish ad or perhaps several,

854
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:46,039
moving at once. I flipped through the incident Report. Each

855
00:40:46,079 --> 00:40:48,480
page was heavily redacted, but I could piece together, flashed

856
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:51,679
s language about lockdowns, staff isolation protocols, notation of a

857
00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:55,480
critical event resulting in staff consolidation and memory management. Instructions

858
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:58,320
for forced elevatory route and a chilling last line notify

859
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:01,760
leadership in person. No electronic trace. As I absorbed this,

860
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:04,519
the security feed monitor left open on a side terminal

861
00:41:04,519 --> 00:41:07,920
in the corner. Blinton stotted first split second infers from

862
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:11,280
its normal leaping empty view. The tape showed a previously

863
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:14,800
unseen vent. Dozens of staff clustered by the exit expression stock,

864
00:41:15,519 --> 00:41:17,760
one woman clutching her chest, two others wrestling with the

865
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:21,239
jawned elevator. There was a crash. Someone's arm frown up

866
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:23,840
as if to shield their face. Then the camera fussed

867
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:26,800
end in a tangle blow. Something not right. Maybe it

868
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:29,079
was only poor exposure, or maybe it was a massive

869
00:41:29,119 --> 00:41:32,840
form impossible looming shapes behind the group. The fief flicked ahead,

870
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:35,400
people scattering, one slumping to the floor in a final

871
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:38,519
immobil sprawl. I looked down the same comference room, the

872
00:41:38,519 --> 00:41:42,199
same configuration. I was standing in its echo. As the

873
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:45,119
lights flickered urgent, the air shift to pressure fell cold

874
00:41:45,119 --> 00:41:48,159
wrap my scalp. I felt for the first time that

875
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:51,199
whatever haunted the floor was over, it was still happening,

876
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:55,320
Stuck in the loop, the building never acknowledged behind me, distinct, undeniable.

877
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:58,320
The elevator bind open, not on floor thirteen, but on

878
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:01,760
a panel displaying fourteen. The numbers were on blocky, not

879
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:04,719
back at the usual blue. I lurched toward the hallway,

880
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,280
stumbling the dosser and badge, clutched in a sweating fist.

881
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:10,320
Turning for the stairwell, I heard voices again, layers of

882
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:14,119
panic and authority, flat professional tones, barking orders, and plaintive cries,

883
00:42:14,119 --> 00:42:17,639
blending into a chorus louder, now synchronizing with the thumps

884
00:42:17,639 --> 00:42:20,280
of my own feet. At the stairwell, the door janned

885
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:23,559
above me, the click of high heels. I turned to

886
00:42:23,639 --> 00:42:26,320
gestri glant, a motion in the conference glass, a reflection

887
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:28,639
almost my own, except it like to bed behind eyes,

888
00:42:28,639 --> 00:42:31,519
wider face drawn in a silent screen. I pressed the

889
00:42:31,519 --> 00:42:34,519
door again, harrider, until it gave. The stairway was wrong,

890
00:42:34,559 --> 00:42:36,840
stairs bending, as if the geometry had been tampered with.

891
00:42:37,519 --> 00:42:40,360
My sense of up and down scrambled, but I climbed,

892
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:44,079
pushing past the vibration in the walls. The air became sharper,

893
00:42:44,199 --> 00:42:47,719
more chemical. My knees threatened a buckle. I reached the

894
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:49,880
lawn in marked eleven twelve and forced the door, hoping

895
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:52,679
desperately for the ordinary, dull lobby beyond. As I staggered

896
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:56,159
into the hallway, the pressure in my earslackened, Silence blest, sticky,

897
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:59,000
and absolute. I made it three steps before the world snapped.

898
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:01,199
I was back at the lobby, last door's marble floor

899
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:03,599
behind me. The elevator dinged, and for a wild second,

900
00:43:03,639 --> 00:43:06,280
the panel flashed again fourteen briefly before returning to black.

901
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:08,280
My chest heaved. I dropped the badge in the tiles,

902
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:10,639
listening as it skidtered, then skidded a halt just by

903
00:43:10,679 --> 00:43:13,639
the janitor stationed. All eyes resolutely turned away, then a blank.

904
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:15,519
The next thing I remember as being slumped on a

905
00:43:15,559 --> 00:43:17,719
viny bench in the lobby. A ParaMed cleaned over his

906
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:20,519
pen light flickering your weight, gnat you were out, called exhaustion.

907
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:23,559
Maybe he wrote something on a clipboard. I was dull

908
00:43:23,599 --> 00:43:27,079
and distant. My phone and the recorder were gone. The

909
00:43:27,119 --> 00:43:29,440
messenger bag sat at my feet, but the files inside

910
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:32,159
were scrambled. A stack of nondescript printer out, no sign

911
00:43:32,199 --> 00:43:35,840
of the incriminating binders or cuar snapshots. The building's day

912
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:38,800
admin hovered near the desk, lipstight, issuing quick instructions to

913
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:42,119
two men in cheap suits. I heard staff privacy violation

914
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:45,199
and schedule over lap band most telling move nights for Bill,

915
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:48,480
keep him out of reception. Bill appeared soon after, gray

916
00:43:48,519 --> 00:43:51,639
faced eyes far away, handed a badge and a handritten schedule.

917
00:43:52,199 --> 00:43:54,480
He avoided my gaze and his hands shook as he

918
00:43:54,519 --> 00:43:58,920
signed off the roster. That morning, management avoided me. Questions

919
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:01,480
about the overnight logs were returned with formal three sentence

920
00:44:01,519 --> 00:44:05,559
replies typed in legal ease on scheduled entry equipment malfunction.

921
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:09,440
A staff hel the elevator key was rescinded. I would

922
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:11,480
work the lobby for the next two weeks or explore

923
00:44:11,519 --> 00:44:15,079
other opportunities. I found inside my home mail walks later

924
00:44:15,119 --> 00:44:18,559
that week, and a marked Manila envelope no return address

925
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:22,559
inside a single full scap sheet authorized maintenance and clean

926
00:44:22,559 --> 00:44:25,320
of floor fourteen two thousand eight twenty twelve stamp Chief

927
00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:28,679
Officer only. The line for settlement mounts was redacted, but

928
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:30,639
it listed names more crossed out than I could read

929
00:44:30,679 --> 00:44:34,159
flanked by a small type note. All confidentiality strictly enforced.

930
00:44:34,199 --> 00:44:38,599
Any incident will terminate access at the bottom. An unreadable signature,

931
00:44:39,159 --> 00:44:43,400
a warning, adair, an admission, no manager or union repuid

932
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:47,320
ever acknowledge allowed. I was shaken, rattled down to the marrow,

933
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:49,880
but clear on one point. Whatever happened, whatever kept four

934
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,480
fourteen erased and fourth thirtiea ghost, It was not done.

935
00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:55,800
The staff weren't just scared, they were institutionalized in silence.

936
00:44:56,519 --> 00:44:59,519
Complicity had become routine, as unnoticed as the office's daily

937
00:44:59,519 --> 00:45:03,039
cleaning side. Sometimes in the weeks that followed, I tried

938
00:45:03,039 --> 00:45:05,320
to explain without explaining, to ask Bill or the janitor,

939
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:07,039
usually met with the shake of a head or the

940
00:45:07,119 --> 00:45:10,559
hint of tears. Once in the parking garage, Bill lean

941
00:45:10,599 --> 00:45:13,320
in close and whisper. They closed the books allan every

942
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:15,519
ten years. You're lucky if you remember anything at all.

943
00:45:16,039 --> 00:45:18,320
I didn't go back to four thirteen, not as staff.

944
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:20,840
I found shift work in another district, to late night's

945
00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:24,599
quieter buildings, No more fancy gloss of corporate security, just

946
00:45:24,639 --> 00:45:26,519
the crowl of time, the room of old paper and

947
00:45:26,599 --> 00:45:29,800
cheap disinfection. But I never really left the quiet floor,

948
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:33,760
my phone would ring once at exactly one fourteen a m,

949
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:35,599
with no one on the end end. When I played

950
00:45:35,599 --> 00:45:38,360
back the voicemails, they'd be empty except for a disjointed breath,

951
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:40,639
a sound just out of time, sometimes a mumble of

952
00:45:40,639 --> 00:45:43,320
alan or a plea I couldn't quite unravel. One night,

953
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:45,840
checking my laptop, I found my incident folded, nearly re

954
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:49,000
arranged digital files labeled er or fourteen, scrambled dates shifting

955
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:51,360
with every click. When I tried to restore them, a

956
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:54,920
set of overlapping voices hissed from the tinney speakers, urgent, layered, desperate,

957
00:45:55,119 --> 00:45:58,159
finish what was started, help us. I stopped checking after that,

958
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:01,519
but some nights slump through after Iro's corridors with a

959
00:46:01,559 --> 00:46:03,199
loop of keys on my hip. That's where I heard

960
00:46:03,199 --> 00:46:05,320
the faint roll of office chairs down an empty hallway,

961
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:06,960
or found a still hot cup of coffee at the

962
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:09,679
edge of a vacant desk where nobody should have been. Once,

963
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:11,719
when I turned to leave, my phone buzzed with the

964
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:16,880
new text unsigned, no number, just a simple line, thank

965
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:20,000
you for remembering us. The time stamp one fourteen a

966
00:46:20,159 --> 00:46:23,320
M on the nose. There are stores in every empty building.

967
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:27,039
I believe that now some are layers of memory, some

968
00:46:27,159 --> 00:46:30,280
are accidents, brass played over by time. But the quiet

969
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:33,440
floor alives in its repetition, in event looping, unresolved furniture,

970
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:35,920
dutifully re aligned, coffee poured for some one never coming.

971
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:39,280
I tell myself, this is how secrets survive in the margins,

972
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:41,920
and they ignore details, and all the silence is rehearsed

973
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:44,679
by the guilty and the innocent. Like I've learned not

974
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:46,840
to linger, to make my rounds clean, to ignore fresh

975
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:50,199
stains with a subtle, inevitable tilt of evertare. But sometimes

976
00:46:50,239 --> 00:46:52,480
i'llone on a night desk, badge heavy in my palm.

977
00:46:52,559 --> 00:46:55,199
I catch the faintest, sweetest whiff of lemon and chemicals,

978
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:58,920
and I understand some things don't stay barred, especially not

979
00:46:59,039 --> 00:47:01,920
on the quiet floor. I stay quiet about the envelope,

980
00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:04,719
about the files, about what I'd seen, not from professionalism.

981
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:06,440
By now I lost the mask, but out of caution

982
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:09,719
that felt almost superstitious. The more I replayed the events,

983
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:12,079
tracing back the rhythm of changes in the thirteenth floor,

984
00:47:12,079 --> 00:47:14,320
the more I understood the architecture of fear at work.

985
00:47:15,039 --> 00:47:18,280
It's a slow, cumulative dread, rational at first, then suddenly

986
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:21,639
staggered by the uncanny. You don't catch yourself believing until

987
00:47:21,639 --> 00:47:23,840
one night, you scanning your own eyes in the lobby mirror,

988
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:27,039
searching for gaps you can't explain. But it didn't stop there.

989
00:47:27,599 --> 00:47:29,880
New shifts in a different district should have handed me closure,

990
00:47:30,159 --> 00:47:32,840
or at least staluted the feeling. Different building, different stuff.

991
00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:35,920
It never worked that way. There were knights had clock

992
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:39,199
in PaperWorks, squared away, walking rounds through corridors built before

993
00:47:39,199 --> 00:47:41,639
my berth, but a stray scrape echoing in the wrong

994
00:47:41,679 --> 00:47:44,760
register would trip my nerse like a tripoi. One shift,

995
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:46,559
three weeks since my last day in the tower, the

996
00:47:46,599 --> 00:47:49,400
new site manager at my job, a woman named Locksley, asked,

997
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:51,760
you come highly recommended, but there's a coortion note on

998
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,599
your file from the last placed staff, health, unscheduled entry,

999
00:47:54,639 --> 00:47:57,639
flagged locks. Anything I should know, Alan to law night

1000
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:00,599
poorer eating bad luck, I said, keeping trimmer from a

1001
00:48:00,679 --> 00:48:04,840
voice off as politics. She sniffed at tides murk passing

1002
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:08,360
behind her eyes. There's always more to it everywhere. The

1003
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:10,199
first time I saw an office jest, sitting on the

1004
00:48:10,199 --> 00:48:12,239
wrong side of the break area at Taosuth. I wrote

1005
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:14,119
it off a left of a from the day shift. Probably.

1006
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:17,000
Then three times in the same week I'd find my

1007
00:48:17,079 --> 00:48:19,719
mug stacked perfectly at top, blank hr forms. I hadn't

1008
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:21,920
printed the coffee inside warm with the lemons weakness my

1009
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:25,119
own grounds never had. There would be a feeling sometimes

1010
00:48:25,159 --> 00:48:27,039
of needing to look over my shoulder, or of a

1011
00:48:27,039 --> 00:48:30,400
whiff of ammonia hanging in coat closets. After iOS, each

1012
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:33,360
sign was small, deniable, but together they formed a code.

1013
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,119
I'd wake sometimes from short naps during split shifts, with

1014
00:48:36,159 --> 00:48:38,280
cold sweat on my neck, and always the same time,

1015
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:40,880
stump on my phone's lockscreen. One fourteen a m as

1016
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:43,000
though I'd set an internal alarm, I couldn't turn off.

1017
00:48:43,639 --> 00:48:46,159
One Monday Sunday, when the city's avenues empty of all

1018
00:48:46,199 --> 00:48:48,719
with cabs, I found myself drawn back, first in mine,

1019
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:51,920
then in physical fact. My new assignment sent me into

1020
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:54,320
city center to retrieve a misplaced parcel. The route cove

1021
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:56,840
me near the tower. I paused at the cob across

1022
00:48:56,880 --> 00:49:00,000
the street. The building's glass caught dusk's light, a smell

1023
00:49:00,119 --> 00:49:03,360
or sodium gulf, rearing into dark. For a full five minutes,

1024
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:06,159
I stood on the opposite sidewalk, watching staff trickle out

1025
00:49:06,159 --> 00:49:08,920
and into the dum let lobby, voices low, body language tight.

1026
00:49:09,599 --> 00:49:12,679
No one lingered near the elevator. A hunch cleaner brushed

1027
00:49:12,679 --> 00:49:15,159
to push Coot rapidly across the floor, Turning before she

1028
00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:17,840
reached the interim marble strip that led to the elevator alcove,

1029
00:49:18,599 --> 00:49:21,320
she wheeled back. I skittering across the surfaces as if

1030
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:25,760
counting ghosts. I should have kept walking for mayvia heartbeat reason.

1031
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:28,920
Almost one let the place keep its secrets. But curiosity,

1032
00:49:29,039 --> 00:49:32,719
or stubbornness or something more. One at a cross entered

1033
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:35,039
through the revolving door of the building's temperature plunging over

1034
00:49:35,079 --> 00:49:39,199
my forearms. Inside the familiar hum of lights. The lobbyat

1035
00:49:39,239 --> 00:49:42,199
altered over the weeks away, felt both new and precisely stage.

1036
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:45,000
Behind the desk sat a thin, hollow eyed young man.

1037
00:49:45,119 --> 00:49:47,840
His badge shuffled half behind his coat read attend staff,

1038
00:49:48,519 --> 00:49:51,159
no bill, No one I knew the temp looked up.

1039
00:49:51,159 --> 00:49:54,280
His people shrank at my approach. Just here for a pickup,

1040
00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:56,239
I told him, gesturing with building, I d for my

1041
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:59,400
new site. He processed it slowly. I was darting down

1042
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:02,199
the package's last row of lockers. Don't linger in the

1043
00:50:02,199 --> 00:50:05,599
lobby after ires, please. His tone carried the muscle memory

1044
00:50:05,599 --> 00:50:07,800
of someone recently brief, the words not quite his own.

1045
00:50:08,400 --> 00:50:10,079
As I moved toward the side hall, I heard a

1046
00:50:10,079 --> 00:50:12,400
low raise, meant for no one float after me. Watch

1047
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:14,719
for the elevator. Don't answer if it opens on its own.

1048
00:50:15,239 --> 00:50:17,599
It shouldn't have meant anything, but there it was a

1049
00:50:17,639 --> 00:50:20,000
residue of warning that trailed me to the lockers and

1050
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:22,880
then out again. I couldn't see the elevator itself from

1051
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:24,679
the alcove, but the back bright panels and the chron

1052
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:27,159
doors flashed under current of blue, the color I dreaded,

1053
00:50:27,199 --> 00:50:30,280
the sick half step between fifteen and nothing. On a compulsion,

1054
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:32,719
I aldered my course, not back to the revolving door,

1055
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:34,840
but to the corridor leading to the security office what

1056
00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:37,400
used to be my kingdom. For the lawn ires. No

1057
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:41,119
one stopped me. A heavy expectant sensibility pressed down that

1058
00:50:41,199 --> 00:50:43,199
feeling of being watched not by eyes, but by the

1059
00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:46,679
architecture itself. Near the staff elevator, I stopped and pressed

1060
00:50:46,679 --> 00:50:49,119
my palm to the glossy wall, listening the hum from

1061
00:50:49,159 --> 00:50:52,840
the cables traveled in waves. Somewhere beyond the silver doors.

1062
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:55,119
I knew it lay that impossible gap ground built omrid

1063
00:50:55,119 --> 00:50:58,440
aut of blueprints and unresolved events. My eyes closed, and

1064
00:50:58,480 --> 00:51:00,920
then faintly the lights overhead flickered in a sequence I

1065
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:03,199
recognized the same pattern that marked off the two worse

1066
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:06,480
weeks of the previous winter. One flash. I paused free

1067
00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:10,840
in succession. The maintenance code never explained I could have left.

1068
00:51:11,519 --> 00:51:14,000
I had no cause to stay, no official lern, but

1069
00:51:14,039 --> 00:51:17,039
the urge for resolution for whatever counted as closures in

1070
00:51:17,079 --> 00:51:20,679
my legs. I tapped the elevator button, knowing nothing good weighted.

1071
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:23,840
The doors tried to resist, then parted with their old reluctance.

1072
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:27,760
The panel inside offered no numbers, just a scrolling message welcome.

1073
00:51:27,840 --> 00:51:31,760
Staff sweped to continue, but my batch had no barkeet here.

1074
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:34,840
I pressed it anyway. The light stutter then turned green.

1075
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:37,239
When the door was closed, I stood at the back,

1076
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:41,000
arms folded. The lift didn't move. There was no jerk,

1077
00:51:41,159 --> 00:51:43,280
no acceleration, just a halt, as if the system was

1078
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:46,079
waiting for my decision. After a long pause, the cob

1079
00:51:46,119 --> 00:51:48,880
began to rise. Floor count silent, no indicator, a light

1080
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:51,639
at all for a second gravity. It's holf felt held

1081
00:51:51,679 --> 00:51:54,679
in suspense. Then a soft chime. The door was opening

1082
00:51:54,679 --> 00:51:58,039
onto a floor thick, chemical, dark carpet. It wasn't labeled,

1083
00:51:58,039 --> 00:52:01,159
but habit told me four thirteen. Only the layout was

1084
00:52:01,159 --> 00:52:04,440
subtly off. The cubicles were still, the glass walls brimming

1085
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:07,599
with shadow. Klino's cut, one I'd never seen, sat abandoned

1086
00:52:07,599 --> 00:52:10,480
by a conference room. Mop limp over the edge. A

1087
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:12,440
sharp tinge of bleach pinched the back of my throat.

1088
00:52:13,199 --> 00:52:15,199
I moved forward, without even the benefit of made all

1089
00:52:15,199 --> 00:52:19,079
clipwoard to ground me. The air colder than memory. I

1090
00:52:19,119 --> 00:52:21,800
scanned for anomalies. The chair at the window, the white board,

1091
00:52:21,840 --> 00:52:24,880
the ever present coffee cup. All were there, only each

1092
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:27,960
inch further from the familiar. The ripple of rearrangement lived

1093
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:30,920
in every surface. A desk phone on the far cubicle

1094
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:34,079
chirped once twice, atoned so ordinary it almost masked its strangeness.

1095
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:38,079
A cross tour and picked up silence. Then two voices

1096
00:52:38,079 --> 00:52:40,719
of laying in static. If you're not staff, return to

1097
00:52:40,760 --> 00:52:43,320
your area. If your staff returner returned, do not circulate

1098
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:46,679
the line cuts. My hand shook, but I hung up.

1099
00:52:46,679 --> 00:52:49,280
It hadn't been meant for me, not really. From the

1100
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:52,320
conference room, the glow of an old monitor pulsed, not

1101
00:52:52,480 --> 00:52:56,119
modern blue, but c pH video processed beyond clarity, drawn

1102
00:52:56,159 --> 00:52:58,280
to it. I entered, and the surface vibration of the

1103
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:01,199
screen crackled on the edge of perception. On its face

1104
00:53:01,199 --> 00:53:03,519
a pause video time sam with a day not to date,

1105
00:53:03,599 --> 00:53:05,960
not to morrow, but a looping air stirring thirteen slash

1106
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:09,079
fourteen slash air slash one fourteen. The forms on the

1107
00:53:09,079 --> 00:53:12,119
table hadn't changed much, executive folders post it and clusters

1108
00:53:12,119 --> 00:53:14,719
only slightly off. A single an opened envelope with the

1109
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:17,960
name Retourber printed in block capitals across the front. The

1110
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:20,039
badge from before lay beside it, a smear of dried

1111
00:53:20,039 --> 00:53:22,639
brown at its edge. My pulse ratched it as I

1112
00:53:22,679 --> 00:53:24,920
realized the fear wasn't from the evidence now, or even

1113
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:27,239
the known risk, but from the anticipation of what the

1114
00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:31,199
sight itself remembered. A chair scraped, not behind me, but

1115
00:53:31,239 --> 00:53:34,000
somewhere in the echoed chamber beyond, and almost in counterpoint,

1116
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:36,280
came the dull, rolling click of an elevator door opening,

1117
00:53:36,360 --> 00:53:39,039
only too far away to be this floor. I froze

1118
00:53:39,079 --> 00:53:42,320
unable to decide for direction in the glass. My reflection

1119
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:45,400
flickered a slow lac then caught up, showing a face leaner,

1120
00:53:45,559 --> 00:53:48,000
older than last week, white at the corner of the

1121
00:53:48,079 --> 00:53:51,719
jaws stress effect. Maybe I looked at my watch reel

1122
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:54,159
analog and saw the second hand jam beneath the minuage

1123
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:56,079
just for a blink, but the hair on my neck rose.

1124
00:53:56,719 --> 00:53:59,440
The smell bleach, coffee, burnt sugartna from an ancient printer,

1125
00:53:59,519 --> 00:54:03,599
spoiled aroun me almost edible. I lifted the envelope. The

1126
00:54:03,639 --> 00:54:07,559
weight inside was wrong, not paper but metal. Shimming it open.

1127
00:54:07,679 --> 00:54:09,760
I found a key out of old style plastic, faded

1128
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:12,960
logo on one side to floor fourteen access crisis response,

1129
00:54:13,559 --> 00:54:15,599
flipping it the back boar instead of a max stripe,

1130
00:54:15,599 --> 00:54:18,360
A square of crimson tape initials over imacher d T

1131
00:54:19,239 --> 00:54:21,559
surge of adrenaline Neili sent a cottering to the floor

1132
00:54:22,199 --> 00:54:24,639
with shaky fingers. I snapped a foe too with my phone,

1133
00:54:24,679 --> 00:54:27,280
something to prove later, my lifeline against the anxiety of

1134
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:32,760
vanishing evidence. Footsteps now definite, unheard, high heeled, too formal

1135
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:34,960
to be the building staff too certain to be panic.

1136
00:54:35,559 --> 00:54:37,800
They approached from the far end of the corridor, almost

1137
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:40,800
at the threshold. I tucked away from the glass, pressed

1138
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:44,159
against the inside wall. A shadow passed thin as a memory,

1139
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:46,800
not resolving into features, just the sense of someone pacing,

1140
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:50,199
searching for a script yet unwritten. A whisper perfectly pitch

1141
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:53,480
drifted through the open conference doors, realigne reset, not for

1142
00:54:53,559 --> 00:54:57,159
public record. As sudden jolt, the lights dropped to emergency rowe.

1143
00:54:57,239 --> 00:54:59,480
The white boat's dye grants poles once every floor shard

1144
00:54:59,559 --> 00:55:02,159
erbruptly pointing back to the badge in my palm. The

1145
00:55:02,199 --> 00:55:04,599
whine of the elevator pitched up, cycling in the shaft above,

1146
00:55:04,679 --> 00:55:06,639
as if the system was squaring itself to find me.

1147
00:55:07,239 --> 00:55:09,519
Papers slid from the table, caught in a draft as

1148
00:55:09,559 --> 00:55:13,000
ghostly as any poltergeist. Pages fan and clustered as if

1149
00:55:13,079 --> 00:55:15,119
drawn by a magnet, all settling at my feet. With

1150
00:55:15,159 --> 00:55:19,199
a slap, I scanned the topmost consolidation procedure staff memory

1151
00:55:19,199 --> 00:55:23,360
integration floor fourteen. The printing official and sterile was interrupted

1152
00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:25,400
by notes and sharps. Swift script, no one leaves, no

1153
00:55:25,480 --> 00:55:28,800
one forgets, return all badges by one fourteen. With barely

1154
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:31,119
controlled panic, I backed from the room, keeping my eyes

1155
00:55:31,119 --> 00:55:33,679
half on the badge, half in the corridor's gloom. The

1156
00:55:33,760 --> 00:55:36,559
chair by the glass rotated frictionless, and in its reflection

1157
00:55:36,639 --> 00:55:38,880
I caught the briefest flickerous land of a woman's profile,

1158
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:43,599
chin sharp as mfocussed. The sensations cascaded, smell sharpening to anumonia,

1159
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:46,920
sound compressing until voices registered only as thunderous pressure in

1160
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:50,320
my ears. As I hit the corridor, moving faster, every

1161
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:52,840
light in sequence blinked out ahead, creating a tunnel of

1162
00:55:52,840 --> 00:55:56,559
deep near dark. Don't run, I maud, remembering some line

1163
00:55:56,559 --> 00:55:58,719
from an old training manual. Not that any protocol could

1164
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:01,519
prepare for this. But the further down the corridor I went,

1165
00:56:01,599 --> 00:56:05,159
the lesser geometery made sense. Office walls now shifted. Wasn't

1166
00:56:05,159 --> 00:56:08,119
that window last on the right? The stairwalls when I

1167
00:56:08,159 --> 00:56:10,599
pressed into the next landing now let up and up,

1168
00:56:10,920 --> 00:56:13,719
never resolving, but instead leaping. The sense of elevation flowed

1169
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:15,199
as if I had caught in the room of amrby

1170
00:56:15,239 --> 00:56:18,119
a strip up and down traded in each turn. I stopped,

1171
00:56:18,119 --> 00:56:21,639
heart in overdrive at last, half by second nature. I

1172
00:56:21,679 --> 00:56:23,920
fumbled the badge from the envelope and pressed against the

1173
00:56:23,920 --> 00:56:28,000
stairwells exit pad instead of denial. The reader chimed and unlocked.

1174
00:56:28,639 --> 00:56:31,559
The door slid open, revealing not a floor but a smaller,

1175
00:56:31,599 --> 00:56:34,639
dimmer office, A boardroom formal with skyscraper skyling pasted against

1176
00:56:34,679 --> 00:56:38,920
papered windows, leather chairs all askew. The long table was

1177
00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:41,599
polished but gouged. The vineer walked under too many cups

1178
00:56:41,639 --> 00:56:44,639
of fists. Sound came as pressure, the doll hush of

1179
00:56:44,639 --> 00:56:47,920
a dozen people breathing shallowly on the far wall opposite

1180
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:50,719
the entrance. The digital clock ticked, lost in time. It

1181
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:54,840
read one fourteen, a m blinking then freezing in those chairs.

1182
00:56:54,840 --> 00:56:58,119
No full figures, only their impressions. Coat straped as if

1183
00:56:58,159 --> 00:57:01,000
just shrugd off, teekeds rimmed with lipstick. An open binder,

1184
00:57:01,039 --> 00:57:04,039
each with its logo Excize sustained. The sense of presents

1185
00:57:04,039 --> 00:57:06,800
crushed the air from my chest. My phone went wild

1186
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:09,800
in my pocket on its green I push alert returned,

1187
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:13,880
badge exit not authorized. The background image glitch cycling through

1188
00:57:13,920 --> 00:57:16,719
security footage from night I hadn't worked. Scenes both familiar

1189
00:57:16,719 --> 00:57:20,559
and impossible. Sometimes I saw myself, Sometimes the blurred shapes

1190
00:57:20,599 --> 00:57:23,559
of staff from old photos. A memory pried itself out

1191
00:57:23,599 --> 00:57:25,679
from where ever I'd buried it built that first week,

1192
00:57:25,719 --> 00:57:28,199
before I'd known what task. Muttering to himself in the

1193
00:57:28,199 --> 00:57:31,079
brick room, not supposed to know, not suppose to remember.

1194
00:57:31,639 --> 00:57:34,480
A surge of static rose in the fluorescent overheads, cresting

1195
00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:36,960
and dropping with each tick of the digital clock. The

1196
00:57:36,960 --> 00:57:40,119
whisperings started again, a cueseration at first, then words help

1197
00:57:40,199 --> 00:57:43,000
us finish what was started. Each four is coming laid

1198
00:57:43,079 --> 00:57:45,519
as the fear is overlaid, sharper and shopper, until the

1199
00:57:45,559 --> 00:57:47,639
air snapped with a pressure I felt in my teeth.

1200
00:57:48,079 --> 00:57:51,679
I staggered back, clutching the badge, the envelope, anything solid

1201
00:57:52,360 --> 00:57:55,280
behind me. Chairs began to move, sliding inward, organizing in

1202
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:57,880
a precise ring at the table. A tremor passed through

1203
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:00,559
the building. It felt like resolution, or an after math,

1204
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:04,119
or a practice rehearsal, finally reaching the end. At that moment,

1205
00:58:04,159 --> 00:58:07,280
the emergency light surged up to blinding. The door behind

1206
00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:09,599
me banked open. An airloe from the corridor dragged everything

1207
00:58:09,599 --> 00:58:12,800
loose off the table, even a badge. Instinct seized me.

1208
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:16,000
I bolted for the new opening, crashing into something soft, fabric,

1209
00:58:16,159 --> 00:58:19,920
a coat or a hand reaching I never saw, and

1210
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:22,000
then I was back spoiled half in half out of

1211
00:58:22,039 --> 00:58:25,840
the staf elevator for reading shallow blind for a moment attempt.

1212
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:30,199
Security man stood two steps away as wild, phone in hand, sir, sir,

1213
00:58:30,360 --> 00:58:32,440
or you are right? Did you call for help? His

1214
00:58:32,559 --> 00:58:36,039
voice was shrill, unused to urgency. I nodded, unable to

1215
00:58:36,079 --> 00:58:38,480
force words. Passed a panic clock to my third I

1216
00:58:38,480 --> 00:58:41,079
pushed up it, grip tightening around the now empty envelope

1217
00:58:41,079 --> 00:58:44,960
in my pocket. Must have fallen asleep, I rasped, long day.

1218
00:58:45,599 --> 00:58:47,800
He peered at me warily, then checked his own watch.

1219
00:58:48,519 --> 00:58:52,119
It's exactly one fourteen. Ye, sure you're okay. I brushed past,

1220
00:58:52,199 --> 00:58:55,159
trying not to run. Tell admind. I returned what I found.

1221
00:58:55,880 --> 00:58:58,800
He flinched at the phrase, nodded too rapidly. By the

1222
00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:01,039
time I reached the ground floor, the lobby was empty.

1223
00:59:01,159 --> 00:59:04,199
Only the janitor remained, mop clutched in hand, gaze heavy

1224
00:59:04,280 --> 00:59:07,679
with understanding he'd never voice. As I exited into the night,

1225
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:09,719
I felt the relief, brief bitter, a suit of cold

1226
00:59:09,719 --> 00:59:12,239
wind on my face, and the solid, forgettable sound of

1227
00:59:12,239 --> 00:59:15,440
the city. No shadows followed me. The buildings were ceded

1228
00:59:15,480 --> 00:59:18,400
into street lump glow blamesus and mute. But for days

1229
00:59:18,400 --> 00:59:21,400
after my phone showed signs, cold locks filled with blank entered,

1230
00:59:21,480 --> 00:59:24,800
all taunted that impossible minute past one. Sometimes a corner

1231
00:59:24,800 --> 00:59:26,960
of my email would be replaced with blood snapshots from

1232
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:29,800
my own camera. Roll shots had never taken, desks empty,

1233
00:59:29,960 --> 00:59:32,599
but always precisely arranged, a cab in the foreground lit

1234
00:59:32,639 --> 00:59:35,840
from above. Once returning home, I found my note of

1235
00:59:35,880 --> 00:59:38,079
my own hand riding circled and underline tacked to the

1236
00:59:38,079 --> 00:59:40,519
inside of my apartment door. Do not forget what changed.

1237
00:59:41,039 --> 00:59:42,920
The tape was the same crimson shade as the badge

1238
00:59:42,920 --> 00:59:48,440
from the envelope. Life insisted new routines, filled dyos, inventory locks,

1239
00:59:48,519 --> 00:59:51,159
building rounds, the dirty math of hily pay stacked against

1240
00:59:51,199 --> 00:59:54,840
groceries and overdue bills, But underneath the rhythm never shattered.

1241
00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:57,559
Each time I entered a new lobby, the pattern played

1242
00:59:57,559 --> 01:00:00,400
against chaiz coffeed a subtle alignment, inviting me to notice

1243
01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:03,480
daring meat ignore. On one of my last nights before

1244
01:00:03,480 --> 01:00:06,480
transferring districts again, a cop Bill sitting behind his new desk,

1245
01:00:06,679 --> 01:00:09,960
watches fatigue radiating through the glass. He motioned for me

1246
01:00:10,039 --> 01:00:13,000
to join him as if in truce and not everyone forgets,

1247
01:00:13,079 --> 01:00:15,960
he said, barely above a whisper, some of us file

1248
01:00:16,039 --> 01:00:18,159
it away until the building decides it's time to reshuffle.

1249
01:00:18,719 --> 01:00:21,400
I met his gaze and saw in his sunken eyes

1250
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:23,119
that told the quiet fore had taken a debt of

1251
01:00:23,159 --> 01:00:26,079
memory and silence passed from God to guard. Did you

1252
01:00:26,159 --> 01:00:30,039
ever find out what happened? Really? I asked? He shook

1253
01:00:30,039 --> 01:00:32,599
his head. No one ever does. They think they do

1254
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:34,960
for a minute, But the rooms change, and the records

1255
01:00:35,039 --> 01:00:37,599
eat themselves, and someone drops a cup of coffee just so,

1256
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:40,000
and you know it's time to leave. We sat in

1257
01:00:40,039 --> 01:00:42,039
silence for a minute, letting the dull rattle of the

1258
01:00:42,079 --> 01:00:45,000
evening fold the space. They'll keep it going, you know,

1259
01:00:45,119 --> 01:00:48,400
Bill said. Finally, it's safer for everyone if no one

1260
01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:50,320
ever finishes the story, if no one asks why the

1261
01:00:50,320 --> 01:00:52,800
badge flog skips or white cleaner skip a certain row

1262
01:00:52,840 --> 01:00:56,159
of safer but not better. He stood, shouldering his coat.

1263
01:00:56,880 --> 01:00:58,880
You see a chair out of place, only just put

1264
01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:02,119
it back. That's advice. After Bill left, I jotted my

1265
01:01:02,159 --> 01:01:05,199
own log in a scribble. No one puts everything back forever.

1266
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:08,039
Memory is always off by an inch. Now, as I

1267
01:01:08,079 --> 01:01:10,519
settle into yet another night, another shift in a building

1268
01:01:10,519 --> 01:01:13,440
that smells only mandainly of dustins wet. I sometimes listen

1269
01:01:13,480 --> 01:01:16,360
for distant chairs moving, wakle, the feel of heavy chemical air.

1270
01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:18,599
Will glance up at the clock just past one, waiting

1271
01:01:18,599 --> 01:01:21,480
for something or someone not listed in the looks. Most

1272
01:01:21,559 --> 01:01:24,519
nights there is only silence, ordinary and deep, but just

1273
01:01:24,599 --> 01:01:26,480
often enough. The chair at the end of the corridor

1274
01:01:26,519 --> 01:01:28,920
faces slightly out, A single cup of sire coffee waits

1275
01:01:28,920 --> 01:01:30,840
at the edge of my patrol, and the faintest whiff

1276
01:01:30,840 --> 01:01:32,679
of lemon lingers after the rest of the world has

1277
01:01:32,719 --> 01:01:36,079
gone to sleep. If I try to explain, people not frown.

1278
01:01:36,119 --> 01:01:40,400
Ask if I'm tied to, suggests Widamin's or vacation, and

1279
01:01:40,519 --> 01:01:42,920
that is the end. Thank you for listening, and I

1280
01:01:42,960 --> 01:01:44,039
will see you in the next one.