Speaker 1: Hullo. I welcined stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. The eyes between midnight and dawn
do strange things to an airport. Even now, Terminal Etteene
is far from silent. H tracks sistance pulse with artificial wind,
the snack stands, light sizzles atop, and watch bags of chips,
but the activity has lost all urgency. A shell's soft
humming rises near gate gee, blending with the homo suit
case wheels and the metallic glossal of the lone janitor's room.
Out in the blackness, reflections cried the winders, double faces,
souettes of chairs, travelers who could be behind me or
hid him within the glass itself. I sit three seats
of from the power station, balancing about a notebook on
my knees and my phone on my shivering thigh. The
note sapp is open, ready to catch anything noteworthy about
the endless delays or the cluster of rovernight ears, wilton
and ras around me. I'm recording field notes, nor for
the current piece, but simply to stake some claim over
this blank catch of the night. A few rows away,
a small voice cracks the low drone world the man
that looks like you, go. Why was he smiling at me?
I peer over my note books edge. The girl can't
be older than six, wisps of hair sticking to her cheeks,
her arms celt round a gray rabbit plush. She points
through the sea of seats to the men's restroom door,
then turns expectantly toward the man beside her. Clearly her father,
knuckled in stress. His mask is hanging loose, face pinched.
What man? His words are too sharp for a child,
but his fear is almost as bare. Honey, I've been
right here. Nobody's left your side. You're just hired. O. K,
We're not playing. She tugs at his sleeve. He looked
just like you, but the she falters. No One else
seems to notice, except the mother near by, shifting soberly
in her own pool of led light. Before I can
sink back into my work, a pH chimes overhead. This
is the final boarding call for flight twenty seven thirty
one service to Lisbon the parting gate age. The voice hiccups,
then desorts corrections strike that boarding for flight nineteen forty
three direct to Salt Lake City. The system stutter as awkwardly,
as if struggling to assert its own authority. The crowd
reacs in fragments. A businessman in a no fit jacket rises,
only to hesitate a cluster of backpacker's trade anxious glances.
The lispen bound woman across the aisle freezes with her
eyes on her phone. An airline rap hustles to the desk,
fumbling with the tablet. Her apology dissolves into static. We're
confirming your manifest. Please wait one moment, we'll fix this.
Trying to ignore the tinge of panic gathering under my skin,
I checked the digital manifest from a flight. My name,
along with another cluster of expected travelers, has vanished from
the roaster, just emptiness, then new names, as if an
algorithm Blinkton decided to shuffle us out of contention. My
boarding pass app updates not valid for current itinerary. It declares,
the color shifting from friendly green to blaring red. A
pressure builds behind my ears. A current or a low
physical harm may be my imagination, but dense enough to
make my thoughts jerk. This place isn't just waiting for
a departure, it's bracing for a verdict. I raise my
gaze to the windows. The runway light shimmer passed, the
glass lost in a sea of double reflecting interior faces,
watching waiting blur with the iro. The girl is hugging
the rabbit, her eyes were and fixed on some point
beyond the glass. Her father slides a hand protectively over
her shoulder. Suddenly, three security officers in crisp matching uniforms
bearing no logos except a mute at silver badge, approach
a traveler on the fringe of the seating area. He's middle, aged,
none the script, holding a book open like a shield.
The officers gesture politely. The man stands a bit too quickly,
and they head first side corridor of conversation inaudible. The
girl's rabbit slips to the floor. Her father starts to
say something, then just holds her closer. The doors to
the corridor swing shut, and the man and the three
uniform staff dissolve into the fluorescent li emptiness. Something ancient
and judicial ways beneath the artificial normalcy. I record a
note from myself half heartedly, though part of me already
wonders if the audio will catch any of it at all.
Asterisk In a different time, I might have simplified the
moment for a later transcript and gone back to my assignment,
my normal routine, what I've come to call they had shift.
Reporting starts not long after dark, tracking up to cure
st doors, catching quotes for podcasts, dreading them undane frightments
handed down by feature editors. Every place our land looks
the same after a week Rentals Airport's half SLPT mornings
work is everywhere, but never quite in reach. This airport, though,
has landed me in its own private holding pattern for days,
and my thoughts returns stubbornate to night svanishing names in
that little girl's frightened question. Still, journalism rewards a dogged
sense of disinterest. I pretend I'm only here to chase
a complicated bureaucratic assignment. A series on airport privatization, public oversight,
and the sole erosion of accountability in transit spaces. I
pet the story for its wonky access behind the scenes.
I get the sort of lee where reporters rarely due
able to move through operations offices, staff lounges, distant commutagates,
rarely touched by the public. Terminoliteene is the strangest of
the lot. It's an oddly segmented wing belt. In phases,
every corridor two wide, abruptly narrow patchwork of new glass
and old stone. Commercial clutter overruns the main stretch. Perfumed
retail stalls jostle against coffee bars and souvenir nicks all around,
the senses of endless suspended motion, repetitive security call baggage,
cut sloping by announcements for flights that never quite seem
to board. There's a relentless hum made track and calm
cash registers that worms into your bones. Tonight, that perpetual
movement has been replaced by stalling. The speakers are stored again.
We thank you for your patients. As we complete technical
review of gate operations, we anticipate minimal additional delay for
your comfort, Please remain seated and await further instructions. The
phrase repeats every half ire as careful tone calibrated to
deflect inquiry. No one is really sured the cafes have
run out of fresh pastries. Only a few barsters linger,
their eyes flicking nervously to their phones and back to
the display cases. I move between them, careful not to linger,
feeling the tension rise with each fresh round of delays,
Most travelers try to distract themselves. A suited man wearing
expensive head ferns paces the length of the central aisle
every few minutes. An alder woman in a blue coat
stairs across woods puzzle she only half finishes. Two young
backpackos compare conflicting text messages, scrolling the airport's clutchy app
for new updates. Staff linger at the corners, clutching radios.
Their small talk is nervous. Clipped smoke brakes are denied
by an ongoing incident investigation. Boarding passes glitch were setting
from check into pending. All the while the public address
weaves apologist through the air like an anesthetic. No specifics
are ever given for the technical review, though late at
night the wording shifts. One announcement refers TOBE security enhancements
under way and special compliance procedures. Everyone glances up, hoping
perhaps for any elaboration, but silence follows each time I
try to force myself back into note taking, opening lines,
questions to bury in interviews, footage to gather once normality resumes,
but there is a stubborn sense that everyone is waiting
for something larger than a re arranged itinerary. The drift
of delay feels lustrated. The way people glance at one
another is not impatience but expectancy. Checking my recorder, I
re listen to a few rough cuts for future episodes,
a montage of vendor interviews, staffers on privatization, even a
half bored pilot's complaints about layover logistics. Every time I
catch myself listening harder for something inside. When another hour
passes without incident, I decide to try the direct approach
whch If the delays continue, I'll start asking passengers what
they are actually experiencing for now a long time steps
by hand, it's gribbling notes about who's it's ware, who's
vanished since the last head count, what's changed in the
background noise. I shape questions for later. How repeated delays
change your perception of this airport. I've you noticed anything
unusual about the staff, the signage, your sense of schedule
or safety. My list grows longer, the crowd shrinks thinner.
I wait for another moment to present itself. I know
from old instinct that the story sometimes sits just beneath
the surface, waiting for someone, anyone, to go looking asterisk.
It starts as a vague impression, nibbling at the edges
of my concentration. Another missing businessman, the absence of the
elderly woman with the blue hat. A pair of suitcases
left by the vending machines that vanish between one lap
around the concourse and the next. After twelve I os
on premises, I bring up my rolling spreadsht passenger counts
faces I've tracked in passing the clusters marked as gone
after a certain time. Each cross check with my note
reveals another small absence. Starbucks hold regular the graybeard, a
man scribbling seued occur into his battered note because no
longer anywhere. A familiar mother child pair by the windows
is replaced by a single collapse stroller folded on a note.
Sometimes the airport covers over the gaps, luggages, moved chairs, wereset,
personal effects swept neatly away by staffers wearing new, unbranded uniforms.
These uniforms are subtly off modern, cut differently from the
airline standard Navy, with only a discrete silver patch by
the chest pocket. The faces of these employees change, but
the routine is always the same. Risk Almost two courtiers
focused on steering people toward designated waiting areas or additional
screening point. After each appearance, confusion sparkes. Multiple travelers return
to the main waiting space with questions or missing items.
I begin compiling the emerging pattern. Several passengers mention companions
he went to the restroom or wandered toward refreshments and
haven't come back yet. Staff assure them blandly, it must
have been a screening. Just please wait here, will reunite
you soon, they say, with a perfunctory gnaw. But no
one returns. Determined to force it into the record, I
try ry logging my observations. I draft a working podcast
segment placeholder title, hash vanishing in plain sight. But every
time I play back my audio notes, certain segments get
distort or refuse to play, specially any mention of unfamiliar
staff or abrupt disappearances. Instead skip, hiss or silence, as
though the device were snipping out the most important points.
Over the next hour, a sequence repeats. A vender shrugs
when I ask about a missing wallet abandoned atop his kiosk.
Try loss and found, he mutters, I is darting to
the side this a pause. Then he leans in loops
barely moving, and adds, don't ask them too much, they
get weird about it. His hand trembles slightly as he
reaches for a knapkin to wipe his counter. On my
next circuit, two suit cases that sat unclaimed for ires
near the chargers have vanished. The screen at gate Jay
flicks between three different flight numbers in a minute. Each
time the list of passengers changes, and each time the
up on my phone glitches accordingly. Again, the new staffers appear,
always in twos or threes, never heard. Each were in
the quiet authority of those already familiar with resistance. By
three a m. The error is tends like a greenhouse
before a storm. My colleagues and text threads are unreachable,
message not delivered, and the airport wifi's patchy, stubborn. I
snap a photo of the empty concourse's evidence. When I
check it, the frame is warped, faces blurred or doubled.
It registers now as more than simple and convenience. There's
an order behind the confusion, a choreography to who is
lost and who is left waiting, and the silent contempt
for those who ask questions. Each disappearance is smoothed over
by a wave of politeness, a practiced indifference. The terminal
isn't just swallowing connections, that's swallowing people. Asterisk. Two nights
grow into three. I trucked, windling receipts at the cafe
and nearly empty water bottles by the rowse of phone chargers.
I sleep fitfully under the knon hunched over boarded pillows,
waking to the same announcements in an increasing sense that
the terminal population is thinning at the edges. I stay
productive by logging every incident I see or hear about.
I start reading sharp and cryptic up bits for the
few followers who might be awake. Kitting at terminal it
teans ongoing disappearance. ACT. I managed to record a Shiki
into view with an indie guitarist, his voice faltering as
he described returning to his seat to find his guitar case,
rants ACT and his secondary back gunlike it never existed.
There's an edge in his voice, a rawscrape I've come
to recognize in those In the age of exit. A
student inferred by Jeanes tells me her backpack is missing,
but she can't remember ever passing it through the main
security line. The detailed shift and recede as if her
memory had been rolled back a frame. She keeps rubbing
her hands, repeating they asked me a bunch of times
who I was meeting. I said, no one. I can't
remember what happened after the web of stories, the tiny
inconsistencies all build toward a broader, colder pattern. Every missing
person is someone who, within a day of phrasing complaints
about shifted manifests, vanishing luggage or in sanctioned staff, is
quietly possessed, rerodded, done clausto. Survivors forms by the charging
islands less out of camaraderie than mutual suspicion. We bond
by NECESSI a tired mother whose teenage son vanished after
a confrontation near the security counter. A soft spoken tech
worker glasses a kew whose jeck luggage keep being or
classified a move between storage points and order staff are
graying at the temples who keeps glancing over his shoulder
as if expecting to be called into meeting. He forgot
he had I start organizing data, sketching lists with names
and blurred descriptors, marking time lassien observe habits, any overlap,
it all points to the same axis. Disappearances line up
with pockets of resistance or accidental breeches. The ones who
leave their things speak up, challenge new security, or seem
just a little to alert to the Inconsistencies are raised
from both the physical and digital space, with only leaders
of us left behind able to sense the subtraction. Eventually,
paranoia overtakes even our small band. Each of us receives,
at different points, polite but unmistakably final warnings. Staffs, new uniforms,
not quite right, smiles, hands folded just so, gently but
firmly suggests we return to your designated waiting areas. The
older of stafford shaking tells me something's wrong. This isn't TSA,
it's not the poor authority. Even the old supervisors are scared.
You know. They don't use radios here anymore. They use
those little flat screens for ones that shine different colors.
When someone tries to ask the wrong question at my KOI,
I approach a uniformed officer, one of the few to
make eye contact for longer than two seconds. She's young, nervous,
clearly not fully bought in. It takes a niow, stilted
round about conversation and shared exhaustion, but finally she agrees
to show me what she can recent closed circuit security
fees available only via her staff logging. We step into
an operation sided off a stick with the send of
cheap satitizing spray and nervous weat. She logs in, hands trembling.
We scam playback from the last twelve hours. If I'd
hoped for a clear reco and disappointed, reality in the
record are way off. Time, stemps, jerk backward, leaping over
one another. Figures appear on one screen, only to flicker
into double exposure or drop frames that leave them faceless
motionless manequins. One segment captures a missing child walking with
a staffer. Then suddenly the feeds sounds to static. When
the image resumes, the child is gone, the uniformed escort vanished,
only a ripple barely visible in the sparkle of lunolum.
The security god closes her lap up afterward, quietly shaken.
Before we can process, chowdercoles across her radio coded phrases
clipped and urgent extraction in progress. Concourse D I hurry
with her to the edge of a viewing space. Two
men business casual are flanked by four uniforms staff as
these in the new gleaming uniforms, and escorted through the
wide green lid emergency doors near baggage. Claim no protest,
just a drift of resignation, as if they already know
that there's no other direction to go. In the aftermath,
our group sits in a frozen silence. Face is drained.
Even the low gossip and nervous laughag dries up. At
the far end of the corridor, the girl with the
rabbit is absent, yet her hair ties looked around the
handle of a suitcase. The toy animal left slump beside it,
staring out at nothing asterisk. We don't even reach the
exit of operations before the opposition materializes. A supervisor who
isn't an authority, with no paperwork, no badge number, nothing
but a perfectly blank silver rectangle at his breasts. He
blocks the corridor with two unsmiling attendants in her Sorry folks.
His tone is gentle calculated. Access to restricted areas is
not permitted to outside personnel or guests. If you have questions,
please redirect them to the public information officer. We had permission.
I was just the junior guard. Falterers Litpresstai. The Supervisor's
eyes skim over me, unblinking, and his voice drops to
a careful, near whisper. We strongly prefer you refrain from
unsanctioned inquiries for your own safety. If you persist, you
may experience immediate deactivation of all airport privileges and permanent
borrowing from future transits owns. Thank you for your co operation,
he nods at each of us, the warning coiled under
the surface. His voice is utterly without effect. As a
freedom for a pleabric memorize to the last comma. The
mother in our group's fallen vibrates. She stares at the
screen pail. They say, my son's okay, that he's been
found outside the airport, but there can't confirm it's my son.
She blinks, swallowing. The voice isn't right. He called me
while he hasn't done that since he was eleven. He
kept asking if I still had his blue hat. He
never had one. Tears well, and she pulls away, dialing
again and again, only to hear no service each time. Fernoyer,
in exhaustion, drive us apart. The tech worker drifts off
to search for his luggage. The old staff from motters
about checking and with night ops, one by one, pausing
by the snack stands or heading to the smoking lounge.
Each member is intercepted by staff, always the new puffect
de blight codder, always with the same suggestion, please return
to your waiting area. Thank you for your patients. I
paced near the windows, struggling not to be obvious. My
phone has lost all access. Each time I open the
airport app, it dumps me to his splush green itinerary
not available. My boarding pass has vanished. My ID badge,
voulags and irigo now reads are not valid for access.
Even my podcast accounts are inaccessible. My log in credentials
rejected as never registered. Sudden and traceable dreadnoughts in my stomach.
The lights in the terminal murmured down to half power,
casting unnaturally lown wibble shadows against a vacant waiting areas.
The usual relay of chatter has faded, only a soft,
almost parental mechanized for a slitch from the speakers. All
passengers please comply with instructions from airport security. We thank
you for your continued corporation. At terminal E teen, A
surge of air moves through the room, hard to say
whether from the vents or something larger pressing in out
in the windows. Split reflections blur and surge. The outside
world recedes, and for one brittle moment, it's impossible not
to wonder just how many names can be erased from
a manifest before the whole structure and winds, taking the
rest of us with it. A surage of air moose
drew the room, hard to say whether from the vents
or something larger pressing in out in the windows, split
reflections blur and surge. The outside world receipts, and for
one brithel moment, it's impossible not to wonder just how
many names can be erased from a manifest before the
whole structure and wines, taking the rest of us with it.
The speakers humphieds, leaving my earstrumming with the residual static.
My breathing feels newly audible in my chest, I reasoned
to myself in a cold vinyl of the airport chair
enforced my gaze downward, away from the mirrored ghosts outside
my notebook. Once clotted with questions, lies open to half
scribbled names, and rows of blank time slops. The names
from our group, Karment, the mother with a trembling blue
and missing sun beside her name, Alex, the tech worker
who lent me their phone charger, Brooks, the gray Head
staff are suddenly seem abstract, barely attached to the living
warrior I had seen in their eyes, a hunch tighter
over my prone, Thus moving automatically back to the manifest page,
despite knowing its futile. The ras where I'd once see
my name, Passenger Gilbert, passenger Mardenow fell automatically with new
rivals initials. Only some names flicker into place, only to
disappear again when I blink. It's as if the algorithm
has gotten tired of pretending. A distincline echoes from the
corridor where the men were lad. Two janitors wheel a
rattling cat past a row of lounges, careful not to
look up. The plastic bin atop their cart is brooming
with objects that should be familiar. Hood is tablet, covers
child's back back with peeling stickers, except I know these
pieces have no stories attached. Now wipe free of context.
I rise, stretching my knees stiff after IROs in force
idleness crack. Oddly, the world outside the tall panes is
as blank as a theater backdrop, all sense of destination erased.
Shuffling over to the snack stand, I let my hands
linger over a display of trail mix and protein bars,
feigning in decision, watching a few remaining passengers with side
on glances cross from me. The woman in the blue
coat sits her crosswood balanced on one knee. She marks
the square in robe fashion, never glancing at the clues beyond.
A trio of teenage backpuckers. One girl, two boys huddle
together beneath her Foyne's collective gloat, trading silent text messages.
I sense their weariness. They lean inward as a freighting
to be disrupted. The cafe closes. The last bar is
to gathers her apron and keys, casting a tired half
smile around the room before she disappears behind the metal grate.
In her absence, the space takes on a temporary permanence,
sealed and final, like a window nail shut. With every
closed door, the terminal shrinks inward. Seconds took by I
tuck myself behind one of the tall plain columns, notebook
balanced on my thigh, watching for anything out of place.
It doesn't take long. A new staff jew or tall
woman slender man face is faultless and strangely and remarkable.
Mew from cluster to cluster, exchanging a few soft words,
sometimes offering a tissue, sometimes only a nod. I decipher
gentle instructions. Please move to gate, dafrioro screening. Thank you,
This is only routine, nothing to worry about. A woman
in bright Ligking's protests a voice sharp enough to cut,
but is prompted again by the woman's neutral persistence. We
appreciate your co operation. The protest dissolves. I catch the
moment the passenger's shoulders drop. She is already standing, passport
clutched in both hands. As she is led away. The
old staff are Brooks, always a step away, gives me
a pointed look as he moves in the opposite direction.
The movement draws attention. The trio of teens grow suddenly restless.
The smallest, a scorny boy in a danem jacket, stands
as if to leave, but the girl tugs at his wrist.
Their muttered conference is surgent but undecipherable over the omniperson hum,
how can I help you? The voice, precise and carefully modulated,
hovers on my left. The male staffer from the new
security teen stands too close, his hands hidden behind his back.
I stammer an excuse, just stretching my flight delay, trying
to get comfortable. He smiles, almost apologetically. We do apologize.
Delays are being resolved efficiently. You'll be notified. His words
strike the right balance of formality and authority, not so
much reassuring me as conveying an order disguise dis courtesy.
He does move until I sit again, my notebook now
pressed to my chest. He proceeds to speak quietly with
the backpackers, repeating the same lines, never deviating from the
practice script. I write, hand trembling, new staff move and
chos scripted speech offrecker. I showed the page as best
I can HYPERA where now security cam is mounted in
sealing corners, red dyed lights pulsing, never quite aiming directly,
but everyone always caught on the periphery. My phone vibrate
against my wrists, a pulse of frantic, short lived hope.
The notification reads security alert. Your mobile access is temporarily
suspended for system maintenance. Beneath the warning, the screen flickers
in the background, besets itself. The safe podcast clip is gone,
replaced by a blank placeholder. No content available. Please subscribe.
Hanneck climbs up the back of my throat. I tuck
the phone into my pocket, rising again to scan the
shrinking pool of travelers. The blue coat woman is gone,
as if her crossword never existed. The teen triolages toward
the restroom, talking quietly. I crossed the gate, h hoping
for anonymity amid the idle seats here. The parent with
the rabbit worn's vibrant, now slumped, sits rogie, the plush
toy cup between her knees. Her eyes are unfocussed, breath measured.
She seems to track the movements of any one indian form,
but remains anchored to her patch of carpet. Is there
somewhere else we can wait? I ask, pitching my tone
to simple shed frustration. He look like you've been here
as long as I have. She shakes her head, lips
at half mast. They said it'll only be a few
more minutes. That was two hours ago. Eyes flick over
my face, searching for some sign of shared understanding. Do
you remember, I begin, then stop. The question's too vague.
Do you remember when people start the disappearing, when the
rabbits lost their names instead? Was it always like this?
Did you see the staff change? She exhales, voice brittle.
I thought it was jetlick, but they kept moving the screens,
changing the names. She glances at the plush animal he
left for as odor, and he hasn't come back. She
closes her eyes. They say they've called him to the
service counter, but that's not what I remember. She offers
her name, Amanda, with that all o hesitation I've noticed
in others, as if incertain if a true answer will
make a difference to the outcome. While we sit forkward
and serve in a new announcement, Warble's overhead the same
for backaged topology, now slightly ottered for enhanced safety, Kindly
remain at your current location until further notice. We are
processing all pending exceptions. Exceptions. The word catches in my mind,
hanging there with the weight of a verdict. Amanda's gaze shobins.
She holds her rabbit a little tighter. They said he
was not on the manifest she whispers, But I had
the ticket print outs. I showed them. A frieze washes
through me. My own print outs, digital ephemeral, have disappeared.
The paper version I tucked in the side of my
back is no longer in a pocket where I left it.
My hands moved through my backpack, flipping through pockets twice over,
finding only a byss's card and a crumpled energy bar wrapper.
The seats beside us are emptying, but the crowds have
not migrated elsewhere. They have simply thinned, faded, left behind
sparse objects meant to serve as evidence of prior existence.
I spot Alex, the tech worker, hovering near one of
the vending machines. They tapped frantically at Fawn. Looking up
and down the deserted aisle, we lock eyes. They drift
over quickly. Did you see the vendor again? Alex's voice
is clipped halfst he's gone. His cat still there, but
they took his badge, his apron. It's just sitting there.
Together with Amanda, we triangulate information to sparate and complete
texts that failed to arrive, calls that cut off, mivring
the sense that our connection to the outside world is
narrowing from Crack to Panol. Alex tells us he tried
to email airport support, as message bounced unknown recipient. He
tried other contacts, all bounced. I wonder if the WiFi
is a decoy, perpetually opened but not actually connecting to anything. Well.
I have considered going outside, but the glass doors have
been locked fast since midnight. The metel crush bars like
prisoner's restraints. Amanda leans in urgency, dragging the tambour of
her whisper lower. They told me that I need to
comply with her screening. I asked for a supervisor. He appeared,
no name, no accent, like a She breaks off for strembling.
He kept saying he'll be called, like it was a sentence,
not a warning. Alex offers their own story, striped backs,
tax reading and claimed security. Refusing at first to acknowledge
their claim ticket, they said, that's not your back, but
it is the sticker, even as my old address. When
I pointed it out, they wiped it down with a
wipe and handed it back like nothing happened. Every time
I find an overseat, it's gone. The next time I
check my wallet. Amanda runs a finger over the rabbit's
tatted air. I wonder how long they let you stay.
If you stick quiet, maybe they never call your name.
I scan the area, noting a shift in the staff business.
One pay moving at a time, always with the same rhythm.
When one disappears into a service corridor, another rise from
the opposite end, eye skimming from left to right, lips
compressed in the same gentle smile. My notes grow disjointed,
as if my own thinking is being abridged in midstream.
I jot down algorithm, manifest up bits tout to surveillance
security cycles, tied up PROCs. Every fifteen men prepare beneath
that a patter and links comply vs. Resist equals outcome.
The lights flicker again, one rout of time, deepening the
space between bright islands and drunk corners. In the distance,
a hand curt rumbles its cargo, shrouded in black plastic.
The janitor at a town refuses to meet anyone's eyes.
I suggest to Amanda and Alex that we find Brooks,
the old staffer who might know how to reach the outside,
or at least who among the regular staff can be trusted.
We hem and how each of us loath to move,
but more afraid of inertia. The intercom interrupts us again,
now in a new tone, almost gentle, but with the
warning beneath all security staff please report to designated points
for secondary compliance review. Passengers may be called for verification.
All others please remain seated. I angle my approach toward Brooks,
whose return to what might have been a night cleaning rotation,
or perhaps simply walking the loop for the hundredth time tonight.
He meets my glance with a slow nod. These people
aren't from the contract company, Brooks says, and undertone, waiting
until we magistrate. Every couple years some firm comes in
redows the rules, but the new lot. They're not even
on staff payroll. The guys upstairs, I t security management,
they just as in the dark. I heard someone got
flag because their photo I d glitch did the back drop.
They tried fixing it, but the system kept saying duplicate.
Found guy's gone. Now no one, I'll say, is the
cameras don't even work? I murmur. I saw it myself.
The feed just loops or skips to static. Brooks shakes
his head, drawn and tired. He wanna get answers. You've
got to find someone who's worked here longer than two years.
But most of those folks are gone now. He glances
at Alex, then to Amanda. They're sweeping from one end
to the other. When they were set, they start fresh.
But I'll tell you when they get to the inn.
If you're not where your name says you should be.
It's like he never touched the floor. A man as
breath catches loud enough that even Alex, usually withdrawn notices,
is there anywhere not on their map? Brooks runs his
tongue over dry lips. Maybe the boiler room, old storage,
but those doors are badge locked. They'll say the system's
out of date. But that's not it. There's a rum
enoment with a manual log paper that doesn't sink up stream.
But if they see you there, it's over one way
or another. He's already glancing behind, haunted. Watch for the
silver pin lef papel. If it's turned down, you can talk.
If not, he never finishes. Another staff arounds the corner,
gaze sliding over us. They move in two's as always
separating in guiding travelers. It will we split me heading
toward the admin offices, Alex drifting back to the phone
charges stations. A man is staying anchored with her rabbit
at her chest. It takes me three D twos to
find a quiet access store, half a jaw to keep
it blinking with the low battery orange, a slip inside
heart in my throat, every beat crunch magnified in my
own ears. The admin lounge is empty except for a
single battered notebook as coroner scuffed, lying on the desk
next to a dead land line phone. Inside scold entries
in various hands is a rough guest log. The names
are familiar Brooks, Alex, Evenkam and the mother, but marked
view one by one with heavy lines. Halfway down the
current page, I find my own initial first name only
as if two dangers are fully commit to the record
underneath an endem not in my handwriting reads pending remove
a manifestmus match. Not responding to correction prompts, I pocket
the log book, tearing out the most recent sheet and
folding against my genes. No reason, only the reflex to
keep proof of something unambiguous. On my way back, I
glance over my shoulder of radio hums a soft coated sequence.
The voice is different, now, soothing and low. Prepare for
next weep less to be updated. Comply with all printed instructions.
In the distance, a man to stands, seemingly called her Rabbit,
dangles at her side, one ear trailing the floor as
she shuffles toward the front of the Cordan Dolph canter.
The staff are. The tall, unsmiling man greets her quietly
and with practiced warmth, A man that looks back only once,
searching for me in the crow her let's move, shaping
a plea I never hear. Don't let it happen to me.
Within moments she through the frosted glass doors, out of sight.
I feel the push to run, to shout, to demand
the intervention of some high authority. But the staff in
new uniforms have redoubled their vigilance, standing at every access point,
eyes rake over, manifests posture, poised for any deviation. My
phone buzzes one last time before all bars vanish. Notification
priority boarding will be announced for select passengers. Please monitor
your status. I returned to where Alex Nash, shrinking inward,
watches as his own name flickers across a boarding display.
Then blinks out. Brooks is gone vanished, and the warren
of minton and stores the waiting crowd is reduced to
little more than Silhouett's backpackers, suit cases and the echo
of their prior chatter. One of the teens, the smaller boy,
now stands alone, sending off a string of an answer text,
his hand shaking. Another announcement starts, then cuts out. For
all travelers awaiting red eye service, Please prepare for immediate
compliance with screening at The sound derails midward, replaced by
a faint, echoing silence after a long pause. Flight stats
boards everywhere shut off, replaced by a looping blue and
white logo TERMIL eighteen slash service interruption. Alex's voice is
barely above a whisper. They can't keep this up forever?
Can they? I don't think they care how long it lasts,
I reply, refusing to let myself sink into the resignation
I see all around me. We both look up as
two new staff as approach, when tall one short, both
with the sane, non committal smile. The chatter fades behind
me as the hallway clock takes toward five m My
thought snap and spiral landing on a single insistent worry.
If they were write the record often enough, who will
remember that we were here? I took my notebook tighter,
clutching the slip of lop page until my knuckles ache.
There are fewer left to record, fear still, who might
believe the next sweep is imminent? And as the hallway
fills with the low, steady hiss of recycled air, I
wonder quietly, desperately how close I am to being erased
before anyone days to ask why every instinct screamed for
stillness after that last announcement, Yet my nerves fazed with
the royal electricity that now pulls through the remaining few.
I press my notebook into my side, hiding it beneath
one arm, while shifting in my seat to avoid the
gaze of the two new staffers. The pacing formed a
net relentless and ever tightening, and no one left waiting
in the terminal failed to notice when names vanished from
manifest and figures quietly slipped from sight. I wipe my
damp palms down my jeans and tried to look like
someone so where we should long a go? Surrendered to
institutional delay, Somewhere down the row, Alex hunched close to
the charging kiosk, repeatedly tapping at his dead phone as
if he could will a connection back to life. Every
so often his eyes darted up and caught mine the
silent plan and match my own. In the corners, figures
sat rigid, guarding baggage with a tension that had nothing
to do with theft. A woman who'd been beside the
coffee shop for iras now studded her wedding ring, spinning
it around her finger until it fell to the carpet.
Her reach was slow, uncertain, as though she wondered if
she had any right to retrieve it or if it
was simply ceased to be hers. By the time her
hand closed round the medal, the hostel cade tuede Earla,
clustered with sullen Bravodo, now blinked nervously. Anytime the uniform
teams passed, no one slept overhead. The Pierre repeated its
new manager, comply with instructions, Please remain in your designated
waiting area. The voice was stripped clean of regional accent
and effect. When at finished, silence stuck deeper than comfort.
The air taste had filtered almost clinical. Now shop with
the edge of unseen chemicals, my tongue stuck to my teeth,
there would be no more casual movement. Every step now
had to be measured. I folded into myself, trying to
look smaller, keeping my head down, but my focus stretched
as far as the periphery would allow. The echoes from
the ab and lounge, the lowebook page warm in my
pocket dared me to do something, but what exactly? With
count as resistance, I rupely brooks his warning about silver
pens and paper logs, and tried to sketch an escape
route that didn't end with my name violently erased from
every roster. Every data trail outside dawn should have approached,
But through the high glass the world state blank mirrored
rows of seating, a ghostly duplication of those still within.
My legs dotted with fatigue, But I didn't risk standing.
I kept my breathing shallow and waited for pressure to man,
certain that no one left here truly expected to see
an exit gate again. For nearly an iron nothing happened,
but the tension was an animal with wet fur, shivering
beneath every surface. At intervals a staff member would stroll pass,
pausing to make a Quietnvona handheld devise, I scanning the
benches for movement. Suns flickered on the digital boards, sometimes
flashing up a new list of boarding instructions, only to
raise themselves seconds later, as if remembering there was no
need for prudence. Every face showed the tall eyes, red
edged posture, wolting, but no one quite willing to admit defeat.
Those who asked questions found themselves redirected gently, their confusion compounded,
given nothing but a smile and the vanilla assurance it
will be resolved soon. I crushed my fingers into my palm,
fighting to steady my rising panic. There was no outside recourse,
no authority above the rules of this new order. My life,
last social posts was diziled. My foam might as well
have been a lump of butt glass, its identity privileges revoked.
I was so de and I had already gone too
far in chasing evidence, collecting notes destined for a hard
drive as empty as every digital trace in this terminal.
The low, bitter resolve hardened in my gut. I would
keep writing, keep recording, even if on spiral bound paper,
even if only for myself. If I didn't anchor my
own presence here, surely no one else would. My fragile coalition,
Amanda gone, Brooks missing, Alex, the only visible survivor, had
glimpsed into individualized survival strategies. We had passed from community
into isolation by design. A distant keycod beaped against the
maintenance closet. The sound seemed to suck the warmth from
the room. A soft, apologetic off broke from a security
team member. Two rose off, a signal that someone else,
another loan hold up, would soon be processed. This cript
was unchanged, a request the pause, a compliant departure into
the back corridors. I counted every step, every sigh as
a heartbeat loss from a story that had almost no
witnesses left. Alex shifted his weak for the third time
in as many minutes, when sing as if every movement
triggered pain. He met my gaze, a question flashing Do
we move, do we retreat? Do we do nothing? And
hope to be passed over one more time? I shriggered,
almost imperceptibly. I exhausted the line between fight and flight.
His lips moved silently. I can't get out. We waited,
breath held, as the overhead lights faded to watery and
certain gray. My stomach hollowed, the certainty of consequence weighing
more than ever before. It was no longer a matter
of curiosity or investigation. Now it was survival, if in
this place the concept of leaving meant anything at all,
asterisk A new sequence began as the lights brightened incrementally,
a near dawn that filled the concourse with a muted,
ambivalent glow. The air inside the terminal grew dryer, scratching
the back of my foot with every inhale. My notebook,
already reduced to abbreviated fragments and half thought sentences, became
heavier in my hands, its meaning swollen with a sense
of finality. My devices, wance portals to the outside world,
had transformed into dead weights. I measured the change not
through the blank screens, but in the way each staff's
gay slipped past us, not truly seeing as it deliberately
scrubbing us from Suddenly, the digital boards flashed again, this
time ceasing their endless leap to display a static blue field,
the words manifest update, terminal reset to compliance phase, and progress.
Name's few remaining became numbers, then faded out entirely. My
own role left a blinking curse of that flickered and
then winked out. Across the aisle, The few remaining passengers
gripped on rests in wordless anticipation, muscles corded, postrophixed in
self defensive rigidity. The young man in a suit, who
had been awake for two days straight now had only
the dull, resigned look of someone who had lost everything.
But the veneer of patience. Security teams appeared in synchronized pairs.
Therefomation a slow moving boundary that crept forward through the
seating area. A kind of plight inexorable push pressed all
of us toward the boarding lanes and away from the
terminal proper alex Still just within my sight, Eh fured
a back, clutching his back as if it might anchor him.
In reality, I realized with a shock that my own name,
already missing from the manifest might have untended me and
weighed deeper than administration. No confirmation existed any longer that
I was entitled to be here by anywhere. If the
system de man did proof, I had nothing left to give.
A sudden shiver passed through me at the thought the
paper from the adminal lobook still rested in my pocket,
scrolled entries all that remained of my place in the world.
I wanted to reach for it, to crumple it in
my hands, to reassure myself that something tangible stood between
me in absolute rasure. Instead, I stayed perfectly still. As
one of the security pays approached, the man in front
offered to be a tific stood it smile, Good morning,
Please prepare your documentation for final processing. Delays are nearly resolved.
Thank you for your patience. My voice caught in my throat.
I forced a response, aiming for meekness. Can I see
a supervisor. I've had some trouble with my documents, just
a system glitch. I think my palms grew slick. His
smile never broke, though his head tipped minutely. A supervisor
can be made available following compliance. Please stand by. Your
co operation is appreciated. He moved on. The woman behind him,
identical in her practice efficiency, swept her tablet screen and
made a brief note beside a row of numbers. I
slumped into my seat, breath quaking, ne the n at Kiosk.
Two more staffers encouraged the suit of man to stand
here in sequence, please proceed to the compliance corridor. The
man nodded, the hollow of his resignation radiating upward. He
left his bag behind. I never saw him again. One
by one, every individual became a file, every name accursor,
every hope for standard remedy replaced by ritual removal. We
weren't being detained, we were being negated. Alex finally turned
toward me. Joe clenched. I met him halfway, stopping in
the aisle, as if in sure whether to move forward
or sink into the floor. His voice was thin, controlled
by will alone. You see what they're doing, right? That
isn't just people who ask questions. They're taking anyone who
isn't where they're supposed to be, or whose name doesn't
quite match up, or he trailed off. I tried to
use the staff WiFi. Didn't work, but it showed something.
I think they have a watch list, not names any more,
just flags, category, sea and profomance match. I saw green
and red lights pop upon those scanners. Neither of us
dared look up for lam My vision blurred at the
edges a mix of adrenaline and sleep deprivation, but focus
returned sharply as a cleaning crew to the far I'd
opened a service door. The movement caught my attention. The
worker abroad woman with the badge number but no name,
slipped inside, then propped the door over with her cot.
No one seemed to notice, but me. I nudged Alex
in the ribs, nodding toward the door. Let's see what's
back there. Despite everything, he hesitated only a second. We
slid along the edge of the terminal, keeping low and slow,
until a cleaning woman's shadow fell over us in the
suppress light. Her exhaustion was plain. Her hands were stained
with the ink of some one who had picked up
too many lost pens, sought it through too many left
behind notebooks. She didn't greet us with words. She simply
gave a faint, urgent shake of her head, followed by
jerk of her chin hurry, and motioned us through the door.
We slipped inside while she turned her attention outward, hireding
no one blocking any stuff glance by arranging her cat
just so. Inside a low storage room flickered with fluorescent light.
The walls were stacked with lost property in heaps and
row upon row of uncleaned bags. Most of it was
generic coats, secondary carrions, but wedged. Among the more recent
debris were stranger, more intimate things. Skull notebooks goold would
half solved arithmetic, a child's hand of cart torn in two,
A batter of bassbat burned around the edges. One shelf
held a pile of mismatched shoes, some fresh and other's
worn to the threads. More onsettling than these were the
half melted eye debadge's plastic walked names nearly visible but
stuck out of sink as if burned by a laser
print a seared mid glitch. Alex fumbled with a battadaffl
and zipping it with trembling fingers. A child's drawing fell
out the stick, figure holding what might be a balloon
or rabbit by the year, surrounded by windows filled with
ghostly faces. I wanted to document every detail. My hand
itched for my phone, but it is useless. I reached
for my small analog recorder, a kind I hadn't used
since college. Impressed record. The familiar click was reassuring and
possibly ordinary, amid the deviring weirdness. Footsteps echoed from the corridor,
measured and calm. The cleaning woman ducked her head in
mouthing five minutes and turned again to her cart. I
pocketed the drawing, feeling guilty, as though handling evidence a
crime scene. At the back of the room, a maintenance
hatch revealed shells of half burned folders, forms in three
languages with identified details censored in permanent black. A print
out with the category the exposure immediate purge appeared on top.
I pointed it out to Alex, who snatched it up
and read with white eyes, what does it mean? Exposure
to what? I had no answer. The word a purge
offered only more dread. A scraping motion above our head,
boots on tiles signaled the return of authority. Alex stopped
behind a stack of unclean backpacks as I flattened myself
against the shelving, holding my breath and replaying the message
from the PA over and over. Comply, remain come all
processes inshore a maximum safety. They were close now. Through
the crack of the door, I saw two of the
new staffers sweet the corridor, brief cases in hand, talking
in low cliff voices next round. Then the shorter one murmured,
manifest update push flight stragglers to be renewed for profile reseet.
Non compliance will be escalated. The taller one returned, we
always overestimate resistance. The outliers, when isolated, fade in secrets.
Thus programmed, there was no dramatic intent in a delivery.
They sounded like people discussing printer tonal levels. After the
staff was disappeared down the hole, I let out a
shop but hail and motioned to Alex to move. We're
not safe here. They'll come through every hiding spot. Eventually
Alex shook out his hands and rolled his shoulders as
if loosening physical pain. We could try the admin corrid door,
Brooks said, there's a paper look somewhere not sinked. Maybe
in there we can prove who's still left, or find
out what happens to the names they get wiped. I nodded, uncertain,
but desperate enough to risk it. We edged toward the light,
each step deliberate as the background hampswelled through the air ducts,
pushing us forward by drid alone. The cleaning woman, catching
our approach, flaked a glance sideways and deposited her own
AXIS badge onto the low shelf, gesturing meaningfully. I pocketed
it with a grateful murmured thank you. Her eyes darted
once to the door, then away. She knew better than
to speak. The exit corrid door's far wall was lined
with utility doors that seldom opened, labeled only by numbers
scratched white against institutional blue. I swiped the borrowed badge
at the fourth door on the left. Prayin Brooks's memory held.
The lock, stuttered, then blinked green, and the door popped
open a quarter inch within. The admin brak room was
dimly lit in steae dale with the scent of burnt
coffee and old air. A battered metal de esquated opposite
wrecks with mismatched keys, flight manifest culling off the thermal printer.
On the wall. A corkwoard displayed a handful of notices,
most routine, a few marked internal use only, and a
single official sheet with the blunt heading with classification events
Documentation Protocol. Below. Three sections listed procedures, all heavy on euphemism.
Exposure was to be processed immediately. Identity mismatches noted for
a rescreening and record update, and any items left behind
were to be transferred for disposal after clearance. Alex found
the paper lock a grade in thick pencil with columns
for name, date, status, and notes. Most censors were neatly
struck through with triple lines, notation removed incorrect, or in
one chilling case, processed to admin directive near the bottom.
In cramped recent hand, I found a man's name half
arras then ridden back in of written by out of order.
No match. I felt my breath statter for every person
who vanished the system rode the record not only of
their current existence, but how, if, and whether they had
ever belonged. If memory is the last jurisdiction, then this room,
these logs where its courthouse, and the judge never took questions.
Alex rifled through draws. I tried the land line, dead
as always, no dial tone, no signal to intercept. Do
we try a call for help? He shook his head
as haunted, who do you call? The outside world won't
see any problem. Our messages aren't getting through. My hands
shook as I pocketed a log page, gribbling my initials
in the present date in the margin reckless and untraceable,
the only prooferal or otherwise, of my existence. Our intrusion
lasted barely minutes. A low alarm growled from the wall speaker,
followed by a precise gentleman's voice. All remaining passengers, please
present yourselves at the compliance chetprint for immediate review to
your co operation is required. The phrase immediate reviews said
the dumb I spine like ice water. We froze in
the hush. I heard movement outside, heavy boots, synchronized steps.
They had realized someone had taken the cleaning badge entered
the record's room. The system had found us. Alex's voice quivered,
We've got to get out. We can't hide, not any more.
Adrenaline fired through my system, burning away exhaustion. My thoughts
narrowed to a series of immediate calculations. Hallwicklear routes, speed
versus stealth, the likely direction of the next sweep. We bilted.
The corridor was empty, but echoes from the direction of
the main terminal told me we had seconds, not minutes,
before the enforcers returned. We ducked left, aiming for the
concourse's far end, a background I remembered from my early
tours as a journalist. The utility badge opened each door
with an agonized pause. Finally, we spilled into a vestigial
lunch luggage storage mostly abandoned inside a line of new
rivals clustered before cordons, phones and bags out, speaking in
cheery murmurs mostly about delays, oblivion in its purrs form.
I wanted to scream we were ghosts. Already nearer the
edge of the group, a boy early teen's hands shoved
and holy Pockus looked lost, his mother searching the crowd
for staff. I recognized his face from the missing list.
He had a sticker still on the back of his phone,
a blue rabbit lodged in silhouette. A staffer approach a
r glass gleaming tablet, clipped belt behind. A second attendant
trace to line up and down with a handhels Ganner.
The boy and his mother stiffened as the attendant paused
nearby everything in order. The attendant asked documentation please. The
mother hesitated, clutching papers with the desperate hope that ordinary
procedure might still apply. The attendant scanned first to her items,
then the boys. The aar glasses flashed a momentary red icon.
Please come with me for corrective review. The attendant and
toned softly, just routine. The mother flinch for a voice
of tight wire. He's under rage. Why do you need
to I want to speak to a supervisor. Compliance reviews
required for all travelers whose documentation is nonconforming. Please remain seated, ma'am,
your child will be returned. Shortly, the boy looked back
over his shoulder, lip trembling. The staffer was gentle, one
hand out but not touching him. Her smile professional, even maternal.
It was almost believable. Alex and I trailed twenty feet behind,
ignored by the newcomers, and two practiced for the staff
to see us unless they were told to life. We
watched as the boy was directed toward narrow utility hallway,
flanked by the two attendants, near a back wall. I'd
a view for a half open service hatch leading into
a coating corridor. Dim sodium lights stretched beyond, illuminating lines
of luggage and racked terminal screens. The staffers guided the
boy head bowed steps, striking through a door marked compliant
processing no re entry. The mother left behind tried to stand,
only to be gently receded by the pair of attendants.
The process had all the theatrical's meusness of a stage direction.
She sobbed quietly, unnoticed by the new crowd, her pain
bracketed by normality. Out of nervous habit. I've thunded the
record switch on my analog device. It stall red light.
The hopelessness of the scene became an immutable fact, not
just paranoia. The audio caught the muted thank you for
co operating, and the rhythmic swish of doors as the
mother whimper, where are you taking my son? Then the
attendants turned to her, offering the same reassuring threats we'd
all heard. You will be called for follow up. Please
wait here. Alex's eyes met mine, fear strange in the
harsh light. We have to try. We can't let him,
We can't help them, I said, even as I hated
the truth of it. All will do is get caught too.
Something in Alex's posture brook. He hunched inward, clutching his knees,
desperate to collapse into invisibility. From my place hidden by
the curtain, I caught sight of the extraction room. Several
ostensible screens were set up in columns old flat status boards,
now displaying names as digital code or line after a
line of straight through symbols. Some names fleckered, others were
replaced by janniic initials. Each time the list of dated,
another person in the main terminal vanished, as if plucked.
The process was clinical, unhurried, but absolute. The old guard
badge went through a slot, a soft beabon at too disappeared.
Even my own print out, despite having been locked in
my bad eyurs before, could not be located in any
of the trays of retired documents, I realized slowly, then
all at once. There was no resistance possible on normal terms.
No one would appear now to contest or explain. The
removals were not punitive. They were algorithmic corrective, designed to
resolve the friction of human error or complaint. If the
system tagged you as an anomaly, that was your only story.
The earthikeness a security found out eyes tiles behind glasses
that updated their data with each passing scan. On my
own Loog recorder, the background humbuilt into something close to
white noise. I pressed ops and starts, hoping desperately for
something salvagable, something that could break the rhythm. Alex tugged
at my sleeve, nodding toward an emergency exit at the
fire enter, one last way up before they possessed everyone left.
He whispered, we need to run now. We moved the
cleaning badge flask green on the scanner, but a Larns
whispered a softer not loud enough to draw all attention,
but just enough for two staffs to break from the
head and follow after us. A final check put loomed
before the exit. Two staffers, half embroidered in signia, looming
over blank stairs, hands cast behind their backs. Please present
your documentation, the taller and tone. As we approached, Alex's
voice quavered, I don't have it. They took it to
my phones. Gune I. The attendant clicked her town, stepping
aside as if to offer a sanctuary, but blocking the
exit with her body alone. I dug the admin log
sheet from my pocket, brandishing it the only physical record left,
desper for proof of my passage. This shows I belong here,
I work with press. I was clear days ago. This
is me. The attendants gaze slid from the page to
my eyes and back, registering no flicker of recognition. This
information is out of date. Current records are digital only.
She intoned, your profile is pending administrative review. Please comply
for correction. I could barely breathe. Fight or flight tangled
in my nerves, leaving me fixed to the ground. Alex
tried to dart pass. The staff was pressed in, still
maintaining an illusion of gentle guidance, but both hands for
and now. As they gripped his arms in the ensuing struggle,
something in Alex gave way. He let out a wordless yell,
all pride and frustration bursting at once. The staffers ushered
him toward a side corridor, never raising their voices, never
showing anger or malice. They did not look at me.
I had become in that moment less than an inconvenience.
My page, my proof, my nose all irrelevant. I was alone.
Their hands never landed on me. Instead, as Alex was
drawn off, I was simply redirected when cold play arms,
steering me toward a row of moldicherez. Final compliance round
begins in ten minutes. An announcement deco any anomalies must
be corrected. I wanted to saw, but there was nothing
left to mourn only an emptiness of sterile as the lights.
I slumped in the chair, clutching the ragular page. The
recorder in my palm was still running, whirring softly. I
pressed it to my lips, whispering the facts, names times
what I'd seen. It might have been hope or simply reflex.
The terminal continued to empty. Each time I counted faces
there were fewer. The staffer booted the room again and again,
the cycle, I realized, which was set until every trace
of the old world was gone. One by one. New
arrivals filed in, tired and oblivious, greeted by the new
staff with the same patients as always. Staff hovered, arranged,
guided each traveler to the right area, their motions so
gentle that the violence barely registered until it was over.
My phone returned by silent handler, beauty till blanc Holmes screen,
unrecognizable out in place of my own. My back back
set softly before me, contained nothing familiar, still wrapped toothbrush,
a blank notebook, a factory reset device, new socks, no
trace of my handwriting. Thank you, the agent said, her
voice a comforting lull. The page from the admined look
creased nearly shredded, was the only item of mine left
on the final sweep. A staffer and near glasses paws
in front of me. Her badge was blank, her face
was perfectly pleasant. You are now cleared for departure, she said.
Her hand touched my shoulder, guiding me toward the main exit.
My limbs obeyed, slow and numb. Behind me, screens called
the new manifest, different names, different lists. The pass was
nowhere to be found asterisk. The air cut my skin
as I left. The tone overal outside air still cool
with the thread of morning rain, but no scent of
engine exhaust or brewing coffee. My leg shirk, almost unwilling
to hold me up. Amid the broadcasted assurance that everything
was reset, departures resumed. A tinerary is valid. I stumbled forward,
slipping through automatic doors that opened and shut without ceremony.
At side, the pucking shuttle was already loading, driver's chattering.
No one gave me more than a passing glance aboard it.
The admined log page crumpled in my fist. Analog recorder
jammed into my jackets inner pocket. The shuttle pulled away
every sense blow by exhaustion. The last records of what
happened behind those windows tockn quietly, invisible but unresolved. The
last thing I saw as we rolled past the illuminated
signed terminal eighteen All flights on time was the Janetus
weeping away, muddy fra prints. The path at a terminal
gateway rent a blank again, as if no one had
ever come or gone. Asterisk at home, safe under the
slow churn of my own ceiling fan, I turned a
recorder over and over, turning events into narrative order into testimony.
Again and again, I tried to reconstruct the sequence of stores,
the faces, the moments raised from every official trace I
sent out emails may cause every attempt to connection met silence.
Most lines had been disconnected. Old friends who might have
received my panic messages had no memory of them now,
or claimed they'd heard nothing at all. Their replies where
they riot circled back to logistics. Were you now? Did
you miss your flight? Unaware of the gap where my
story should have fit, Then a batter package arrived, brown paper,
no return address, postmark, nearly legible as a scrubbed It
carried only my name and address I barely recognized inside
my unlog recorder clean, but the tape inside and touched
hand shaking a press play. It was mostly static, a
his thick as sea falk. Beneath that, faint at first,
but growing stronger as as strained to hear, came a
chorus of voices, each layered and distorted, again and again.
The recorded phrase repeated, insistent, familiar, comply, comply. Voices merged
and separated. Mine was there, distorted categysy exposure, Please present
yourself for review. I could just make up fragments of
other tongues names, or were they only sounds? The hum
of the terminal A man is gentle, whisper Alex's final
prudest all sounded like I goes down a corridor that
never ended. On a final impulse, I checked the airport's
rivals tracker, one lost time, searching for any residue of proof.
My photos source from a forgotten press credential flashed up
for a split second, then vanished. My name, too, flickered
in the search bar, jumping between not found and denied,
then nothing, an expanse of white, a cursor blinking alone.
A coldness clamped onto my spine. The sense of being
watched had never left. I sat back in my chair,
the recorder still playing static, and waited as the cursor
on my screen blinked and blinked, and then finally went dark.
But the darkness behind my monitor felt occupied, as though
the addsonce pulsed inside the walls and waited to be named.
I powered down and sat for a long time, and
ath the cush reality ambiguous. My blanket pulled around my waist,
the artifact of a night spent trying to rewrite a
past that had already been atomized. Day slipped by each
hour outside that terminal, pressed into banalities, grocery lists, cube bills,
online forms. When my bankquard failed and I spent half
an afternoon explaining myself to a chat window, I recognized
the limp evasions and support agent's tone. Sorry, account not found.
You may need to confirm prior registration status. My driver's
license renewal came back undeliverable, my jim fob flashed red
instead of green, and a teenager at the counter shrugged
without making eye contact. Each failed interaction sounded off another
sliver from my sense of reality. Every attempt to leave
a mark online yielded nothing. I uploaded a back up
of my old podcasts. The sight accepted the files, then
displayed a zero listeners last abated never. My attempts to
post about the airport vanished in a cascade of automated
air messages. My feed reloaded to blank fields. I called
my editor only to reach a voicemil tree that led,
after a gentle voice pause, to a liaptold melody, and
in silence, I started keeping list by hand. The aft
was a confession shaping reality by the act of naming
a Manda Alex Brooks Carmen. Details swam before my eyes,
threatening to become abstractions, blue rabbit lock book slip, the
stillness before announcements. Each entry took in the character of
a charm against the erasure seeping inward. But the next
morning I found my notebook missing from where I had
left it on the counter. My handwriting my own looked altered.
When I checked again, my address on bills changed incrementally
until it landed a place I had never lived. When
I walked past the travel agent on my street, a
woman inside a person I had spoken with in passing,
met my eyes and smile, but offered only welcome. Is
this your first time? In the neighborhood. I watched the
recorded footage from my analog tape, play of freezing frames,
pausing to catch slivers of the time I was certain
I'd spent in terminal eighteen. The static increased the longer
I watched, flattening any recognizable sound into that single brutal refrain, comply, Comply, Comply.
I wrote emails to colleagues, even to distant contacts, half reckless,
half determined, in hopes of sparking some memory, searching for
a thread of recognition, no one replied. My nickname, used
once affectionately by an old friend, arrived in a reply,
all chained to a different story where it sat and
claimed and unnoticed. Names in old social posts blurred to initials.
Profile pictures faded a zolwets. Even my own emails bounced
back to me recipient not found. Try again. I reached
out to airports elsewhere, smaller municipal or regional stop over upstate.
Do you contract security through? I would begin, but I
always met confusion or wheeling away from specifics. One operator
offered a brisk, sorry, we don't manage terminal eighteen, then
swiftly changed topics, brisk and dismissal laid into another sleepless night.
My doorball ran. I peered through the peep hole and
saw all the dull hallway light, curved and distorted in
the cheap glass. On my dormt sat an envelope, tan unmarked,
thick with the density of too many sheets folded on themselves.
Inside these notebook pages wrinkled and grease stained. One bore
amand as looping hand. A recipe for lemon muffins jotted
in the margins, beside a time line of events at
the airport. Another list of fun numbers alyxes brooks, as
though writing them down might conjure their owners into being.
Two pages at airport branding, faintly visible old manifests rose
of first initials and blood surnames, each with a strikeout
and a column labeled process. I searched for my own name,
but in each register the line must buck out, with
a thick permanent marker, overwritten until only a distorted smud remained.
I checked the postmark no city, no returns are just
a faint embum pressed into the flat. A stylized etaine
so cleanly embossed that I was unsure if it was
a manufacturing defect or a deliberate signature. The paranois spun
up again. Who sent this and why? Was it a warning,
afret or merely an echo from someone else on the edge.
This spiration hollowed up my days. I di develloped small rituals,
pressing my hand to my phone as if vibrated, jumping
at each new email, compulsively checking news feeds for mention
of airport delays, compliance initiatives, or accounts of missing persons.
I searched flights to lispon eroded red eyes, any sign
that reality would acknowledge the fractures beneath its surface. The
outside well gave no confirmation. The news headlines tiped by
with the name Continuity, Consumer Index rises, new security partnership
announced local team wins Simivinyls. In the comments beneath an
article about airport renovations, one user posted a question, any
one ever fly out of Terminal eighteen? We're delays lately,
but no one answer. The post was deleted with an IRS.
I thought about going back, buying a new ticket with cash,
but each time the idea came, I remembered the nearest
mothering quiet as I left the staff, who smiled as
my presence faded in their register. One night, unable to sleep,
I took the analog recorder and sat on my balcony,
replaying the tape at a low volume. The refrain was
the same static. Then the quietly hissing voices layered and inexorable.
Sometimes in the waves of white noise, a single phrase would emerge,
nearly intelligible, a process for your own safety of only
to dissolve again. My phone rang, breaking the cycle. No
call ide, I let it play out, not answering. The
voice milt transcribed in digital monotone. You have been processed
for correction. No further action is required. I deleted it.
It returned the next evening, same time, always the exact wording.
On a whim. I tried looking up old wreckers in
the public archives, newspaper clippings, podcast guest logs, mention of
my name in last year's press event. Nothing. The lynks
failed or looped, source files corrupted, altogether gone. Outside the
world continued, ordinary and untouched. People commuted, greeded, the neighbors,
made doctor's appointments, reneed the driver's licenses without issue. The
sound of the city bus engines, kids chattering in sterwell.
Proof may be that the everyday could persist mlested, but
each day some thin segment of memory loosened. Names dropped
from my mind. Faces became hard to recall. I tried
speaking Amanda's name aloud, but strange testations swallowed the word
before I could form it. My own voice on the
old podcast intro file was unrecognizable. Welcome too, terminal, then static,
a digital chime, nothing more. A package arrived without vamfir
on my doorstep one morning, small, heavy, double wrapped, no
return address, just my name and careful print. Inside was
the batted analog recorder, win to the final minutes of
tip left. I press play, already expecting to hissy static,
but as the tape spoiled out and yuvrous murmured, all
passengers must comply. Correction is for your own safety. Remain
where you are. The recording ended, ticking backward until the
reels jammed. For several minutes. I sat hands resting on
the device, hot, slower and steady. Outside sunlight washed up
the window, bright and steady, but I couldn't shake the thin,
raw whisper of my own existence, screeping at the corners
of the world. When I opened my email again, I
found a blank message, no sender, no subject arrived at
nineteen eighteen, the minute of terminal eighteen to Sindeyre. It
contained a single attachment, the clipped screen grub of a
Manifestalis name struck out the cusser blinking. My photograph, however,
half exposed over static, then winked away a final attempt.
I walked down to the airport, stood at the outer fence,
in view of the white plated glass windows, behind which
only ghostly and moving so always drifted. My face reflected
back at me, stretching blood by the curve in the glass,
looked almost like someone else's inside. Uniform staff moved and
paar silhouettes, a resistibly familiar operating in synchronized gentle choreography.
A new cluster of traveler circle baggage carts waiting as
Manifest clicked through lisip of their heads, names, then initials,
then nothing. I could read none of them, not from
the road outside, but the rhythm was the same. I
put a hand to the cold fence about the sure separation,
and knew that wherever the erasures started or ended, the
process would continue, quiet, polite and absolute as dusk folded in,
I turned away, the hum of the recorder still vibrating
phantom reassurance against my roupage. I held tight to the
worn admin locked page with my first initial, a waning
proof against a world intent on blanking out its heirs.
But deep down I felt the perimitterve of my own apps,
and strowing tight o' the scent with every step, that
the gap left by the disappearances behind terminal a tekud
grow big enough to swallow anyone at any time, and
that I was hardly more than the flicker of a
name ano list appearing, than gone, then rewritten again and again,
and that is the end. Thank you for listening, and
I will see you in the next one.